Anticipation

My darling daughter,

I know that in as many as three weeks or as few as three days, you will be here. As I sit here now, watching you squirm below the surface of my belly, my skin rolling and stretching with your every movement - I am in awe.

Last night I had a dream that I was getting ready to go out and when I looked in the mirror, my right front tooth looked funny. I touched it and it wiggled, then fell out completely. Horrified, I opened the bathroom door a crack and called for your Nana, who was over at the time. There were a lot of family around, but I wanted your Nana. She came in and I was crying as I showed her the tooth. She calmed me and told me to look in the mirror. Magically, I was not missing a tooth any longer. When I awoke, I looked up the possible meaning of this dream and found that when you have such a dream it means you are about to have a huge change in your life and are doubting your abilities. Calling for your Nana to come was likely my way of looking for reassurance from my own mother - that I would be able to be a good mother to you.

Over these last few weeks, your daddy and I have been taking a lot of trips down memory lane. We've talked about the circumstances that led us to find each other, to fall in love, to get a dog, get married, and now - create you. We talk about how far we've come and what a miracle it all is. And it is a miracle. We talked about you, sweetheart, long before you came to be. We called you by name and had conversations with you until we were ready for you to come into our world. And your precious soul waited patiently for us to be ready. And you came. And soon we will meet and you will be part of our family. We are so grateful that you chose us to be your parents and that God chose you to be our daughter.

You probably could do without the mush, but let me just say that your daddy is an incredible man and you are the luckiest little girl to have him. He is the most loving and generous husband and I am the luckiest woman. You won't remember this, but he talks to you and rubs the spot that we think is your bottom (hard to tell). He tells you how hard he is going to try to be a good daddy and how much he will love you. He cooks fantastic and nourishing dinners for us and takes enormous pride in feeding us and helping you to grow healthy and strong. He has also taken on a lot of the household chores and the care of Duncan - things I'm not able to do anymore, as you have grown so much.

I talk to you and sing to you. All the time. And I play "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" - a snowglobe/music box that I received as a gift when I choreographed 'The Wizard of Oz' 10 years ago. I place it firmly against the low part of my belly where your head is and hope that it soothes you. You often wiggle - just a little bit - before listening attentively until the tune runs out.

You have been a blissful sleeper lately and I so appreciate that. Aside from the one time your daddy made spicy pasta and it had you kicking my insides until the wee hours - and the other time I had some late night Ben and Jerry's Peanut Butter Cup ice cream (which made you twist and stretch and squirm and hiccup all night long) - you've been great. I wonder if your current sleep habits will be any indication of how you will sleep when you are here?

There is so much I wonder about you. Who will you look like? Will you have your daddy's round butt, or my own flat 'no-butt'? What color will your eyes be? Will you be into sports or the arts? Cooking or climbing the corporate ladder? What will your voice sound like?

And bigger wonders and I suppose fears - will you love me? Will you be proud of me? Will I be able to raise you to be a caring, loving and thoughtful citizen of the world? Will I be a good mother to you, so that I will earn the right to have you call me 'friend' when you are a grown woman?

I love you so much already and you aren't even here. I'm so looking forward to holding you, my baby girl. I do not like to hold other people's babies, as they always seem to cry when placed in my arms. Sometimes the baby will cry before I even touch it. I'm hoping this unsettling and upsetting trend will end when I hold you.

Until that day comes, I will continue to rub your 'bump' of a butt, talk to you and soothe you.

I'll see you soon, baby girl.

Love,
Mommy

How you came to be

It is September of 2007 and I am the happiest woman on the planet, I am convinced. My fiance, (God, how I love that word!) and I are basking in our recent engagement by taking an impromptu trip to Marco Island, a place we have visited many times during our courtship. After landing in Ft. Myers, we pick up our rental car, pick up groceries and dump our bags at the condo before finding our way to the beach, both of us anxious to put our toes in the sand. It is late afternoon and many of the beach goers are packing up their umbrellas, shaking out their towels, brushing sand off of bright plastic beach toys. My fiance and I walk hand in hand, carrying our shoes in our other free hand. We talk about our first date, first kiss, about how far we've come and all that lies before us. We are just about to reenact that first kiss, when we are interrupted by a giggle and a flash of pink. We look down to see an adorable little girl who couldn't be older than 2 or 3, toddle past us, curly dark hair bouncing under a yellow sunhat; white pampers peeking out of a ruffled pink polka dot bathing suit. Just behind her is her father. "Suzie!" he calls. And then he calls her by her full name "Susannah! Come here!" (The name has been changed so as not ruin the surprise)

My fiance and I turn to each other. "Wow. I really like that name," I say.

"I love it." He agrees.

And we lock that name away as a keeper for hopeful future use.

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It is December of 2008, our first Christmas as newlyweds. My husband (God, how I love that word!) and I are attempting to ice skate for the first time in years. We are downtown at Millennium Park in Chicago. The speakers are blaring Christmas music, and the rink is filled with families. Kids are seemingly everywhere, whizzing by us at high speeds, falling down and getting back up again without care or concern. I suppose when we made these plans to come downtown and ice skate, I had an overly romantic idea of how it would be: Snow softly falling, my husband and I holding hands, gently skating around the rink, stopping to kiss or make a snow angel or take a smiling and rosy-cheeked photo to put on our Christmas cards.

Unfortunately, this is not the reality. My husband will not even hold my hand for fear of falling. "Don't touch me!" he yells as he gingerly makes his way around the rink, jerking his body every now and then so that anyone who sees him probably thinks he has Turrets. I don't fare much better, practically clinging to the railing, cringing whenever a pint sized Michelle Kwan double axles too near to me. After about fifteen minutes of this torture, we turn in our skates and settle in for some well deserved hot chocolate.

As we sip and warm up, we notice a couple sitting near us, with their little girl, about 4 or 5 years old. Her mother removes the child's purple fleece hat to reveal a mop of brown hair that is standing on end from static electricity. The little girl, however, does not seem to care or notice and instead is concentrating on blowing on her hot chocolate so she can drink it.

My husband looks at me and smiles wistfully. "Whaaaat?" I ask, though I already know what.

"I'm ready for Suzie to be here. I want Susannah here with us now."

My husband and I both want to have children, but while he wants to start yesterday, I want to wait until we've been married one year. This is our plan and we're sticking to it.

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It is July of 2009 and I am nearly finished training for my first ever marathon. It is early on a Saturday morning and I am preparing for a 12 mile run. We have just learned that my cousin gave birth to a baby girl the day before, in Paris. The news is exciting and wonderful and has caused my husband and I to wonder about our own future children. When we start *trying* will we be able to conceive right away? What if it takes us a year or more? What if we can't? I push these thoughts away for the moment, for I need to focus on my training. I am running this marathon for my other cousin who is battling Lymphoma. My husband comes up behind me and wraps his arms around me, one of my favorite gestures in the whole world. He seems to know what I'm thinking. Aloud, he says, "Hang on, Suzie girl. Your mommy has to run a marathon for her cousin, but when she's done, you can come right on into our world." I turn to him and hug him, then look up and echo his words. "That's right, Susannah. Mommy just needs to do this one thing and then we will be ready for you!"

The marathon was on October 19th.

We got pregnant on or around October 6th.

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It is Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010 and I am beside myself with nerves and anticipation. It is the day of the big ultrasound. After making it past the first trimester, and getting a normal 2nd trimester screen for certain birth defects, this is the final hurdle before I can finally breathe.

My husband is holding my hand as the ultrasound tech slathers my belly with cold gel. She places the wand on my abdomen and almost immediately we see our baby, whom we haven't seen since week 8 when he or she looked more like a gummy bear than a baby. But now we see the head and the outline of a precious little nose and mouth. The tech tells us that she needs to take measurements of the anatomy and would we like to know the gender?

"Yes!" My husband and I both nod.

We see an amazing and incredible series of images that I will never forget. We see the spine, the four chambers of the heart pumping blood through a tiny body. We see fingers and toes, knees and elbows. We see kidneys and spleen and the umbilical cord with the red blood feeding our baby and the blue being carried away. I am mesmerized by what I'm seeing and find it incredibly surreal to feel my baby move within me and see it on the screen at the same time.

Suddenly, the tech focuses in on an image that I can't quite make out. I am about to ask what we are looking at, when she starts to type words onto the screen. "It's....a....girl." she writes.

I cannot stop the tears and the laughter that are filling me, exploding into the small white room. My husband in his suit and tie is squeezing my hand and covering my face with kisses. "It's Susannah!" he beams. "It's her! She's coming! We talked to her, we called her into being and now she is here!"

Now she is here. And she is ours. We remember a time when we were first dating and talking about how we both wanted a dog - lab. A chocolate lab. "I've always wanted a chocolate lab and I would name him Duncan," Dave had said. Four weeks later he received an email about a litter of lab puppies, among them - one chocolate. It was our Duncan. We had talked about him and he came into our lives. And now the same was happening with our Susannah.

Later, we are back in the waiting room. In several minutes we will be seeing the doctor to go over the ultrasound (which will show that everything is normal and looks good). Both of us are on our phones, calling our parents to share the good news: It's a girl! Dave is on the phone with his mother and he tells her the name that we've chosen for our baby girl. His mother is surprised. "You're naming her after my mother?" She asks.

Dave and I look at each other. We are stunned. Dave's grandmother passed away when he was a toddler, and he never knew her. Everyone called his grandmother by a nickname and he never knew that her actual given name was Susannah.

This instantly makes our choice that much more perfect. The original Susannah was a strong, brave woman who raised a daughter on her own. What an honor. And because we are naming her after Dave's grandmother, her middle name will be after my own Nana - my mother's mother, Mary. She was also a strong, independent woman, working hard to provide for her daughter, without the help of a husband.

The two women have a lot in common. So much so, that it's hard for me not to picture them in heaven, friends for eternity, now bonded together by their precious great grandchild, named after them both.