Cognosco

Dear Baby,

I will be 31 weeks pregnant tomorrow, and I’m getting more excited every day. You are active, A LOT, and I never grow tired of feeling you move and tumble and kick and hiccup. Even when it keeps me awake, I am still delighted. I am amazed with how different your movements have felt through each little phase. First, it was like butterflies. Then, it was like I had “swallowed a bag of ferrets”, which is someone else’s quote but I don’t remember the name. But that really was what it felt like. And then I could feel your somersaults. And now, you shake my whole abdomen sometimes and other times it just feels like rippling under my skin. It must be getting tight in there. If I were you, I’d be kicking like crazy too. It’s no wonder we aren’t all born ridiculously claustrophobic!

I used to think it was silly when people would talk about being excited to “meet” their baby, but now I understand. I can’t wait to meet you and look into your eyes and cuddle with you and hold you close. It seems strange, because you’ve already been a part of me for so long, but I have never actually seen you. I already love playing with you—when you poke me, I poke back, and sometimes it becomes a fantastic game. In fact, I will sort of miss this intimacy.

I have lately been playing you songs from “Kind of Blue” by Miles Davis because it is my favorite album of all time and I think the bass tones are something you would like. You certainly seem to like it, because you seem to tap wherever I put the speakers repeatedly. Maybe you hate it, but I assume that then you would just move away. Maybe you are trying to tap along with the beat. I do hope that you will love music and be one of those children who moves along with it unconsciously. My nickname when I was little was “boogie” because I couldn’t stay still when there was music around. It is the one trait that I really hope you inherit from me.

Your daddy can’t wait to meet you either. He talks to you regularly and asks often how you are and if you’ve been moving. He is amazed by the strength of your movements and the fact that he can feel it so strongly when he’s just lying next to me. I tell him, he has no idea what it’s like from the inside. Sometimes I feel sorry for him, because he hasn’t gotten to know you the way I have, but all in good time…

There have been many times in my life when I felt the down side of being female. But now, I feel so lucky to be a woman. I wouldn’t trade sexes for anything. To experience this magic is such a blessing.