Dear little human growing inside me,
First, I would like to tell you that I already love you more than I imagined I could love anyone (don’t tell your dad – I love him a lot too).
Second, pregnancy sucks. You’ll likely never be pregnant, but I hope you’ll learn to be in awe of pregnant parents and support them in every way you can.
It is a strange thing, but even though you are so little, you already know more about me than I’ll ever know about myself. There’s no hiding how I feel, my impulses or reactions since you have access to all this information in the raw. All the things I went through while I was pregnant are the first things you learned. I would have liked to travel the world and showed you all the different colors and flavors humanity can produce, but mostly we sat on a desk practicing architecture. Hopefully, we’ll get to travel a lot together once you are born – you are 37 weeks old now, no airline will let me fly even if I wanted to.
We did go to Brazil when you were 17 weeks old, and I think you liked it – although I caught a cold during the last couple of days. We drank matte every day and had brigadeiro probably every other day. We also had a lot of black beans and collard greens, yum! We went to a baroque concert and the theater caught on fire. We visited a whole bunch of churches and amazing art exhibitions. We didn’t get to go to the beach, but we visited a lot of friends who were very happy to meet you.
It was very hard to pick a name for you. It’s such a huge commitment and responsibility… Finding your name took us more than 6 months, actually, since dad and I had been discussing names even before we were married. After we found out we were pregnant with you, we hung a whiteboard in the living room with an ever-changing list of names one of us liked. As you can imagine, we didn’t agree on any names, until one day I just had to know your name, I had this overwhelming feeling that I needed to start calling you by your name. That’s when we were finally able to come to an agreement, and it has felt right since then – as if no other name ever existed. I want to believe that you played a part in choosing your name and that somehow you helped me feel that this was the right name for you.
It is interesting that although I don’t see you, you can’t talk to me or properly respond, I still feel like we communicate. I talk to you, I meditate with you, and I play with you. It is very subtle, but sometimes you gently push my finger back and forth, sometimes you just turn as if you were trying to sleep and I was just worried I hadn’t felt you move in a while. During meditation as I relax, it seems that you relax too, and my belly becomes very soft. You move in sync with certain songs and seem to become aggravated by others. When I walk you bounce inside as if you are enjoying the exercise. You like our cat – as he is purring near my belly, you move softly as if you want to pet him. I think our beagle is a bit too loud and energetic for you, it seems like she startles you. Also fireworks – you didn’t seem to enjoy the extra noise, but I think you’ll love it when you can see it.
You were breech most of the time, and by being so, you taught me a lot. I learned more about my body, about patience, about perseverance, and my own limitations. I had to surrender to the process, and trust that however you are born, it will be the way.
I hope you enjoy the weeks to come – I can’t wait to look you in the eyes and tell you that I love you.
Your mom,
Ana.
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