"You are our gift. You are our child."

Dear Baby,

We talked briefly about having another baby but the words still hung in the air when the lines showed up positive on the (five)pregnancy test(s). I said "the odds couldn't have been great" but you are not a number or a statistic, you are our child. I worried about having our kids so close together, about having two babies under two and how it would all work. I worried how I would deal with the exhausting and take care of both you and Zoe. I worried that it would somehow shortchange your sister and you.

 

And then we went to church and I held your sister while she played with my hair and tried to compete with the priest. And I knew then that you are not a problem to solve. You are not a challenge to overcome. You are our child, our gift. I don't need to worry if the car is big enough ... if the house is big enough ... if our bank account is big enough ... or if my heart is big enough.

 

You are our gift.

 

You are not the sum of the number of pounds I haven't lost since Zoe's pregnancy or the number of books we will have to move to put a crib in your Daddy's office or the number of hypothetical hours that are not sitting in my PTO bank at work.  

 

You are so much more than all those things (and in a few years, none of those things will matter). 

 

You are our gift from God.

 

He requires nothing from me than an open hand and heart with a good dose of thanksgiving. It will be hard and we will be tired but it will also be good and beautiful and right. 

 

For now, and for every day with you, I will say Thank You to God who created you and who holds you closer than we ever will. He knows your name; he has it written on his heart, on his hand. You are not a surprise to him. You are His creation that He gives to us for safe keeping.

 

And I am thankful.

I wrote that first bit months ago, when I was scared and surprised to find out that I was pregnant again. Thankfully those feelings quickly changed to gratitude and I've managed not to "schedule" the next several months or make lists of what needs to be done. I have mostly just been thankful (and tired). 

As the tiredness and nausea has faded, I have heard so many people say how great it is to have babies close together and I am looking forward to having a newborn during which the experience isn't totally new. 

We are pretty sure that, as with Zoe, Christopher will find out the sex of this baby and share it with two creatures: Zoe and Loki. He thinks the baby is another girl and I think the baby is a boy. Either way, we will be excited and happy. They will be 18 months apart. We know that it will be exhausting (but that's a trademark feeling of having a newborn baby, whether there are other children involved) but we also know that this is God's plan for our family. 

The baby is due mid-April and I think it will be fun to have a Spring baby this time around.

Our sweet girl who has no idea what the commotion is all about.