Writing this here so its saved in a somewhat secret space, so I don’t loose it, so I continue writing it. Its only taken my 5 years.

My dearest sweet boy. You made me a momma. I always want you to call me that even as an old lady. I hope you always know how much I love you and I swear I am trying my hardest everyday to be the best I can be for you. Some days I feel completely worthless to you. I feel I’m a horrible mother and that my dreams of what I would be as a mother gets caught up in the chores of keeping up with our home and also making everyone happy. I look at you and you make my heart full.

You are 4 and a half right now. Your sister is just over a year and I just found out I’m pregnant with your next sibling. I am feeling all kinds of feelings in every direction. When I was pregnant with Isla I didn’t know how I would love her as much as I love you. Turns out it doesn’t work that way. Love is all encompassing and just expands. It isn’t necessarily shared or divided. I have my own separate love for you and I will love and support you until long after I leave this world.

I wanted you long before I had you. It took a long time for you to be real. I saw an acupuncturist 5 times in one month to help you along. It worked. Your dad was at work when I found out and I wanted to tell him in a special way. I wrote out a story with stick figure pictures on about 20 post it notes describing our life and love and at the end there was a pregnant stick figure me (haha).I put it up on the wall and took a video of each post it, pausing a moment at each one so he could read it. He read it out loud to me several times because he didn’t get it at first. He was so excited. We all cried when we found out you were a boy. We were so happy. I knew your name right away, although it took a while for your dad to get on board. Two days after you were born he said it just seemed to fit.

I remember my whole pregnancy with you. You were so easy, I thought you were going to be this quite calm being. I had no real complaints and I worked throughout my whole pregnancy taking care of elderly people with dementia. We lived in Maryland at the time, in a very small apartment surrounded by a lot of trees. We moved into a bigger condo when I was 7 months pregnant with you. Your dad was on the ship so uncle Stephen and his friends helped. I was ripping out carpet and painting and trying to get our new home perfect for us all to live in together. Everyone kept asking if I had the “nursery” ready. I didn’t do any of that. Somehow I knew you would sleep with us and it turns out you needed that more then anything the first year.

Your due date was October 17, 2014. I didn’t feel any real contractions with you. You were perfectly happy in my womb and you wore born October 30th at 11am. The doctors kept trying to induce me, but I refused until the last possible moment including the latest time of day. They told me If i didn’t agree to be induced at that point they couldn’t admit me. OK FINE, you could come out. I was happy that you were happy and I was enjoying it being just you and me for a few weeks longer then expected. Nona came out on the 18th to be there for your birth. She waited the 2 weeks for you to be born. I told your dad and Nona to leave the house one day and I turned up the music really loud and tried to dance you out. To this day you love having dance parties!

I was induced on the morning of the 30th and I had the hardest fastest labor I thought was capable. I hated the induction. I was hooked up to tubes and wires and I couldn’t sit still. When it was time for me to push I remember I couldn’t breath and I was focusing so hard on just breathing. I didn’t open my eyes the whole time. I didn’t make a sound (your sister is another story).  The nurse handed you to me and as you were being carried over my body to my arms you pooped all over me. I held you shaking and crying. Someone fed me a turkey sandwich. You were perfect. You weighed 7lbs and were really long. I couldn’t sleep, I just had to stare at you. Every eye flutter and noise. Nothing in the world mattered and I was lost. Your dad held you and cried, everyone did. You were, and are, amazing.