Journal entries for a formerly-secret-now-public baby on the way
3 December, 2013
Dear baby,
Today we found out that you are our baby. We love you already. Your mama went to the doctor’s office and they took your first picture. You are very small right now, just the length of a grain of rice — a “basmati grain of rice,” your mom said. I hope that someday you might read what I am writing and it might give you some insight into that mysterious time when your parents were young and not even five years into their marriage. We love one another so so much, and we want you to be in our family.
So, we don’t know what to do now. We can’t really tell anyone yet, because you have to keep being healthy through your mom’s first trimester. For the same reason, we can’t really buy your crib or stroller or any of your baby stuff. Our hopes are so high, but we’re scared of what could happen yet. I got done doing a root canal today, immediately called your mom, and found out about you. And already, I am worrying. Will you keep growing? Will you be healthy? Happy? I want so much for you already, and I’ve only known of you for twelve hours.
It is a fairly cold and snowy day, but the early sunset didn’t really get to me, I was thinking about you so much. I came right home to be with your mom. She’s happy and scared in turn. We looked at your picture today. Read about labor, read about pregnancy, talked with one another about what type of house we want to find before you are born. Talked about everything. That’s the way your parents are, but I suppose you already know that. You are due right around July 22, 2014. I think that makes you the high school class of 2032. Holy cow, that doesn’t even sound like a real year. I’m going to go sleep and dream about being a dad. I’ll write soon.
Love,
Your Dad
4 December, 2013
Dear baby,
Tonight is your first snowstorm. I hope and pray you will see hundreds more. Your mom and I are sitting on the couch and thinking about how to name you. We’re trying to find a house for you. Trying to decide what this all will look like. I’m excited.
Love,
Your Dad
8 December, 2013
Dear baby,
We told your mom’s parents and sister about you today! You are the biggest news in our lives. We don’t know what to do right now other than worry about you… but we’re quick learners, we’ll figure out what to do soon. Please keep growing up safely, you are making your mom nauseated right now.
Love,
Your Dad
9 December, 2013
Dear baby,
We put up stockings today. There are so many changes on the horizon, that these Christmas moments feel like they should be extra-savored. We have no idea what next Christmas will look like, and all the unknowns kind of pile up. I guess that’s how life is, but sometimes you want to know something for sure. I want to know you are going to be happy and healthy and of course I can not. We live in the tension between knowing and finding out.
Love,
Your Dad
16 December, 2013
Dear baby,
Tonight we took you to Romano’s Macaroni Grill and you mostly let your mom eat food without interrupting her with morning sickness. She feels pretty awful most of the time right now, but she told me that you just grew tastebuds today. So, now you have tastebuds and the world will never be the same to you. Or to us. We love you, and right now in 2013 we want the exact same things for you that we do as you are reading these words sometime in the future: to be happy, to be healthy, and to be loved. We can’t tell, but we hope you are healthy right now. You sure are loved.
Love,
Your Dad
25 December, 2013
Merry 0th Christmas baby!
You had your zero-th Christmas today. Your Mom got a very nice warm zipped sweater that will keep both her and you warm.
I wonder what you will look like, baby. I wonder what it will be like the first time you say a word, or laugh, or when you fall asleep with your mom and dad.
There’s a bunch of junk out there about raising kids, so we’re trying to learn the right way to do a few things, and we’ll trust ourselves with the rest. After all, your mom is really good at doing the right thing.
Love,
Your Dad
02 January, 2014
Happy Birthyear, baby!
I heard your heart beat for the first time today. Your mom and I went into the clinic for our big 11 week appointment, and we talked about all the lab tests and blood draws and numbers that we needed to in order to make sure you were growing up healthy. We’re trying not to be parents who worry about everything, just parents who worry about the right things and leave the rest up to the universe.
Keep baking in there!
Love,
Your Dad
04 February, 2014
Dear baby,
You are the size of an avocado today. We have one of those in our house! I held one the other day… it is not very big. You need to grow more, baby. So, you probably noticed I stopped writing for a little while. Well, here’s the deal: your mom and I have been very very VERY busy. You see, we talked about it and realized that where we are living is lovely and fine (ask me to tell you about our wonderful landlady Mary Alice Kopf someday), but it is not safe for a baby. The oven makes carbon monoxide (and delicious food when your mom is cooking, though we usually use the toaster oven), the windows leak cold air, the water doesn’t drain right, the electrical outlets bulge from the walls, the doors don’t shut, the ice dam has created a thick coating of ice over the sidewalk, and there is no air conditioning. You deserve better than that!
So, we are moving. Your mom and I have found your first home, a cozy little townhouse in Woodbury. We had been shopping for months and months and months but it was only when we found that you were on the way that everything crystallized and we narrowed the endless options and possibilities down to something we could find, purchase, and move into before we met you. So, here we are. We are doing it all for you, little one.
(And a little for us, because we’re slightly tired of all the things going wrong in our current place.)
Love,
Your Dad