Coming

Dear Abigail,

Soon you will be a big sister. Not that you already aren't, but a big sister in the another person living in our family but outside my body.

You have been so excited waiting with us for so long for a brother or sister. You have wondered and hoped and loved so completely already for this little addition to our family. You have been disappointed, too.

Planning for a sister, determined that this one growing within me was a girl, you cried at the ultrasound when told we were gaining a brother. Now you plan for him. You wait for him nearly as impatiently as I wait for a return to normal body, mind, hormones.

We have come within days of meeting him. Tomorrow the doctor and I will pick the latest date. You are waiting for the hospital and for the homecoming. You have picked his coming home outfit, a good choice.

I remember when you came. I thought I knew what was going to happen. I had planned and hoped for you, picked out clothes, hoped for a imminent delivery so I could meet this new person. But I was unprepared-the time you consumed, your utter dependence, my ineptness and my desire to do everything perfectly.

You too are unprepared. In your excitement and your hopes, you don't realize the attention that will be diverted from you to him, his very helplessness demanding that you wait, the time he will take, and the craziness he has the potential to create in your mother. My darling, daughter, you are unprepared. I, too, am unprepared knowing these things only in theory.

And that is as it should be. We love him so much, we wait with such anticipation, we long to meet him, because we know not his level of need. And when he does arrive and we are met with the things unprepared for, we are prepared with the love sown in hope for this new life designed by God for our family. We will walk through those early days, finding our way, making a new normal in the grace of the One who has placed us together as family.

Today I want you to know how very much I love you. Nothing that will happen in the next few days, weeks, or months will change my love for you.

You are my daughter. You are a gift from God.

I love you.