The Secret

An Open Letter To My Precious Miss A:

It was a Sunday morning, Father's Day to be exact.  I don't know why I did it, but while your Daddy was in the kitchen, I went into the bathroom and took another pregnancy test.  What was this one, the fifteenth?  Probably.  We had tried for over a year to have a baby. Many times throughout our marriage, I had taken a similar test, hoping it was positive, praying it wasn't.  But now, with everything in me, I hoped it was, hoped that tiny line would appear and prove your existence.

And it did.  It appeared and I stood shocked, unable to breathe.  You were real.  You were there, a tiny little seed, growing secretly in the dark.  I had planned a hundred different ways to tell your Daddy, but when the time came, I couldn't say anything.  I just led him to the bathroom and pointed to that white stick, sitting innocently on the counter.  I watched as he looked at it, looked again and looked once more to be sure.  I looked into his eyes and watched as they grew bigger and bigger, matching the broadening grin on his face.  You were real.

For four days you were our secret, known only to us and God.  We held the knowledge of your existence in our hearts and carried it around like a precious stone in our pockets.  I wanted to share the secret and I hated to share the secret.  Would telling others make it less special?  Would it steal from this connection that bound me to your father and him to me and both of us to you?  But love has a way of surprising us and just like always, once shared, it begins to multiply and bloom in places you never planted it.  It's like an invasive vine, but instead of trying to rip it up by the roots, you encourage it, water it, fertilize it.  And so it was with The Secret.  This priceless treasure, hidden in the deep recesses of my core, didn't diminish with sharing.  Instead, the love and connection we felt only intensified. 

You grew.  Over the next several months, we watched breathlessly as you pushed against the confines of my body, showing your strength with every kick and every heartbeat.  I would feel myself so in love with you my breath would steal away and I would be overcome with a river of tears.  The doctor said it was hormones and I'm sure he's right...but I also know that some of it was a torrent of love, love I had never felt before, love for a tiny bean of a person I had never met, if only in my dreams.  But you continued to grow and we finally met face to face, your chocolate brown eyes staring up into my blue ones. Most of that day is a blur, much like the photo, but the one thing that remains crystal-clear is the intensity of emotion I felt the moment I knew you were born.  Your cries pierced the silence as you met your mother and father, your Mommy and Daddy and penetrated walls in my heart I didn't know existed.

You have no idea what you have done to me.  You've ruined me, ruined me for anything but torrential rains of love.  I'm not content with an early spring drizzle anymore; I crave the overflow of a love so deep it penetrates the recesses of my soul, grace that comes like a deluge and overtakes me like a summer downpour. 

I look at you and I don't remember what life was like before that day, before the day I saw your reality in a little blue line.  I look at you and I wonder what it would be like to have to give you up, to lose you.  My heart aches at the mere thought of the thought and I think I understand better what He meant when He said, "This is the kind of love we are talking about—not that we once upon a time loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to clear away our sins and the damage they've done to our relationship with God."  The miracle of all miracles: looking at you helps me see more of Him.

With all the love I have,

Your Mommy