A Letter

A Letter to my Babies – *spoken into a recorder during the first trimester, to be included in Michael and Alena's baby book. I was finally able to write it down and decided they should still have it even though they are gone.*

Hello my little nuggets, it’s your mommy.

You are only about 9 weeks and 2 days now. You are no bigger than the size of a grape. A grape with a heart beat - which is amazing because you have arms, legs, feet and toes already. You have everything that’s important.

It’s still a little bit crazy for me to believe this is even real, because right now I am not showing and you are so tiny. You feel like more of an idea than a reality for me…but I’ve seen you. It amazes me every time. And a small part of me wondered if I would ever have the chance to see you, yet there you are!

Your daddy and I love you already. We’ve known you were with us from the very beginning – in fact, we picked you out. You were the two little embryos that fought the hardest to thrive and grow. We knew you were strong and determined and that you would fight to stay with us…and we were right.

We are so excited and so proud of you already. It’s strange to be this proud of someone you haven’t even met. You fought to be part of our family until you were big enough to be put back where you belong. You made it possible for me to experience what it was like to create another human. Even though you are growing alongside each other, I know you will be completely unique and individual.

I think this pregnancy will be a very interesting and exciting road for us and I am positive you are going to be good friends. Maybe not right away.  :) You might fight and have to learn to share or maybe grow-up with the same friends. You may have to be in the same classes or may like the same guys (or girls), in which case I hope you are a boy and a girl so we have a few less ‘situations’ during your teenage years.

Either way, I know you are going to be friends and that you will love each other. You will be grateful one day that you have each other even if it’s hard sometimes. Because I know what it’s like to be at odds with your sibling for a period of your life and also how close you can become later when you come to realize how important family is. You may not know that for a while and it may take some time to grasp the notion that family is the most important and wonderful thing you have. My sister and I are different in a lot of ways and we didn’t always see eye to eye, but now we are best friends. I only have one sibling, as it’s possible you might…but we love each other and want to see each other all the time. We make each other laugh and understand each other, which is very special because there may not be that many people in your life to truly ‘get you’ in every way. The one thing I always wished for my own children is that they have a sibling, so they could possibly experience what I have. I know I would be much lonelier if it were just me.

So just a little advice from your mom; don’t take any of it for granted. Appreciate the family who love you and the friends who stay loyal and are there for you through everything. These are people who will see you at your worst and will still love you no matter what.

Since you are no bigger than my thumb, I will save some of the advice for when you are born.

I also wanted to thank you for sticking it out with me and believing in me: believing I will take care of you and protect you and give you whatever you need. I will do my best to take care of you while you are with me and make the best decisions I can make since I am who you have right now. As much as your dad loves you there is not much he can do to help you grow and stay safe. That’s up to me for these few months. I’ll do my best to give you every possibility, every advantage, before you are born into the world.

In fact, you both are really helping me do that. You are giving me the best gift, not just by being here and surviving, but also by making this journey incredible from the very beginning. So far I haven’t had a day of sickness and that is something to be happy about. You have been so good to me in the symptom department and I am thankful. I can sit out on a warm day and enjoy the sun without feeling nauseated or go about my day at work without worrying about the proximity of a bathroom. So far, there has been no bleeding or anything to make me overly worry about you. So far, you’ve made this pregnancy very enjoyable – something I didn’t necessarily anticipate. After all the pain and difficulty it took to get you here, I am so grateful that I can feel good right now and that I am able to enjoy the small changes in my body as you grow. I am able to spend valuable time with our friends before you grace us with your presence and I can get out and enjoy our short summer weather. Some women are sick for much of their pregnancy or are put on bed rest and can’t fully enjoy this beautiful phase of motherhood.

Even through this wonder of a pregnancy, I worry about you. I worry that I am not sick and think that maybe I should be since that is what seems normal. But mostly I feel lucky. Lucky because I’m not sick and because a lot of women haven’t been given the gift that I’ve been given. There are couples who are still struggling to create a baby (let alone two) and I know how they feel. We gave it everything we had and came out on the other side with our biggest wish granted.

We have a family that gave us the support we needed and every advantage that they could. One day you will see how lucky you are, to not only have two determined and stubborn parents who wouldn’t give up, but to also have three loving grandparents. You have three grandparents who have given everything they could to make you part of our family and who have been waiting patiently to meet you.

You have three aunts who will dote on you and be around to help raise you. You’ll have cousins to play with and a lot of ‘adopted’ aunts and uncles who are so eager to get to know you. You have so many loving and wonderful people in your life already and we are lucky to have such a great support system. These are all people who have been with your dad and me from the beginning and know how much we wanted you and how long we waited for you.

We’ve been rooting for you from the time you were little clusters of cells – my sweet twinnies. And now you are growing (with amazing speed) into two babies. You were exactly what we wanted and I am so happy to have gotten to this point. I am so grateful to be able to get to know you from the inside out.

I know there may be challenges to come and that carrying both of you could be difficult down the road. There could be many things to worry about in this double pregnancy, but I will try to stay calm and provide you with the least amount of stress possible. I’ll send you good thoughts, surround you with as much love as I can and hopefully it will be enough to bring you out safely.

Your dad and I will be working to make sure that your childhood will be a happy, secure one and even if there are challenges we have to face as a family, I know that we’ll get through it together.

This is going to be quite a journey and you are incredibly loved already. I can’t see much of you yet, but I can feel you. I can feel your presence and hear your heartbeats, strong and fast. And I am patiently waiting for the day that I will get to see your faces and hear you cry. I am excited to hold you and call you by your names.

You have a doggie to play with and vacations to look forward to. You have a cousin who you can learn from and a new house where we’ll snuggle each night.

I know how strong you are and how hard you worked to make it to us…and I’m confident that with all of us working together, we’ll be a family by March. Although I am also confident that you will be ready for us before then and make your appearance as February babies.

Someday you will know what it took to get you here, someday I will tell you about this unbelievable process. There are a lot of people in our lives who still don’t know the path we took for you and many who don’t even know about you yet. That will come in a few more weeks and I am so excited to tell them! I know my life will change completely, but I am so ready. We’ve been waiting for you my darling babies!

I’ve taken advantage and enjoyed our time as a single couple, but now that you are really here…really on your way to see us…I am on the edge of my seat. Take your time now! Don’t rush yourselves, but know that we are so very happy that you found your way to us. You have such love waiting for you.

Some people take their children for granted and don’t appreciate their blessing. They don’t know what it would be like if they couldn’t have it. And as hard as this journey has been, it’s made us see with more clarity. In turn, we will see you and what you mean more clearly.

I look forward to every ultrasound appointment and every milestone we reach. Getting to see you grow from a speck on the monitor to an infant will be such a moving experience and I will have pictures and videos of it all. These are things you too will get to see someday.

You are already, as the size of two grapes, draining my energy and making me oh so sleepy. But I am happy. You mean so much to us.

Thank you for making me a mom.

I love you my little ones.