Dear Littlest One,

It’s seems I’ve known you were there almost since your conception.  As I held your little second cousin Weston over New Year’s, I savored the smell of baby skin, of holding a little one once again.  When your daddy gave me that look, I smiled back, innocently, pretending I wasn’t thinking what I was…  Thinking that even then, life was growing again inside me.

I watched Aleah with her little brother Weston.  I saw how much your big sister Ruth loved having other little people to play with.  And like Mary did at another Christmastime long ago, I pondered…

When the holiday cold bugs hit as I knew they would, I avoided the cold medications, fairly sure by now that you were there.  Other times I may have just wished or hoped, but somehow a mommy knows when she’s really going to be a mommy again…  It’s kind of like the way I knew your daddy was the one to be my husband.  You just know.

But it’s only in the past day that the realization has really sunk in.  That your Daddy and I have mentioned it out loud.  The thought of you kept me up through the night, as I snuggled your big sister, sick with a fever.  It’s overwhelming.  Where we’ll fit everything–like a bed for you!  How I’ll get your sister to sleep at night and you to take naps during the day.  If I’ll still be able to help at at the store at all.  But oh little one, at the same time, I’m so excited!  I’ve missed having a little person who was truly a part of me.  Your sister stopped nursing so soon it seemed like she was hardly a baby for long.  And now she’s all grown up and one year old!  I wish she was a bit older, so she could understand when we tell her she’s going to have a brother or sister.  When she sees you on the ultrasound screen.  When she feels you kick Mommy’s tummy.  But I know she’ll love you so very much, and be able to thoroughly enjoy the surprise when you arrive.

I love you, my little baby.  And I’m praying for you, as you grow beneath my heart…

Always,
Mommy