Dear Baby, I Will Protect You With Everything I Have

Dear baby, 

I will protect you with everything that I have. 

You deserve to come into this world safe and loved and protected. 

The truth is . . . I can’t guarantee that. I cannot guarantee my own safety. And it hurts. I’ve done everything in my power to prevent this scourge from touching my family. 

But the reality is, it could happen to anyone.

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Even now, before you are to be born, I love you more than words can say.

I love you like I did your older brothers. You’re a part of me. You have every bit of my heart.  

In a more perfect world, you would never catch this and never struggle to breathe. 

Like the other babies, you’d curl up next to my heart fast asleep and I wouldn’t dare put you down. 

I’d see your brothers hold you for the very first time with their toddler hands and wonder what in the heck you were. 

I’d see you sleep and flash happy, milk-drunk smiles.  

I’d see you roll over and sit up. I’d be there when you first pulled up on the couch and when you tried your first spoon of peas. 

I want to know that feeling when you finally sleep for five hours at a stretch. 

These things were all difficult with the other children, and yet, as you come into this uncertain world, that’s all I want. 

I want you to cry, and I want to hold you. I want the days and nights to blend together. I want to take you out in the stroller and lull you to sleep with my exhausted steps. 

I want to promise that you’ll know the love of your grandparents. 

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I’d love to promise you tractor rides and art lessons from the two best grandpas in the world. 

I wish I could promise you quilts and presents from your grandmothers. 

I wish every aunt and uncle could fawn over your cute baby toes and sparse tufts of hair.

I want to be there for all of it. I want you to be there. I want your dad and your brothers and your aunts, uncles, and grandparents all there. 

I wish you could come into this world and it would be the same as it has always been. 

As we’re faced with an uncertain future, there is one thing I can give for as long as I will live: my love. 

You will be loved. 

Your existence is given by God. You are a miracle and you were meant to come here in this place and this time.  

No matter the circumstances and no matter what happens, you will be loved. 

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I believe love is a sublime expression of the human heart. It is healing and transformative. And I hope it will be enough. 

There is much I cannot control, but I can promise you I will fight for our future with everything that I have. 

Love, 
Mom