a brief history of you, part 1

dear little bear,

long before you were born, daddy and i started talking about you.

should we have a baby? one of us said.

yes, let's have a baby. the other one said.

okay, it didn't happen just exactly like that, but that's the gist of it. i think i was the one who started it. i knew at least seven years before you were born that i wanted to be a mom, but it wasn't until a couple of years later that i felt really ready.

i don't know why it was so hard to get pregnant. we tried and tried. we went to specialists. it was an odyssey. i was constantly peeing on sticks--ovulation tests, pregnancy tests. no matter how well we timed things, the pregnancy tests always showed one line only. when almost four years had passed and still no baby, daddy and i talked about adopting. but daddy wanted to try a little bit longer.

one day i felt like i might be pregnant. at first i didn't trust the feeling, but by the time i got home from work i was pretty sure. it's hard to put the reasons into words. i took a pregnancy test that night and both lines showed up right away, good and strong. i went right in to the bedroom to tell daddy. he was lying in bed reading. he didn't seem surprised, just kept on reading his book. i started thinking about you and how our lives were going to change.

the first time i saw you you were just a flickering heartbeat. you were six weeks into your journey into this world. seeing your little heart beating there inside me, i felt protective of you. i was learning what it meant to be your mom. i would be your shelter.

the second time i saw you was at your eleven week ultrasound. even then you were already beautiful. you were busy busy busy, twisting and turning inside me. i took home some pictures of you and i looked at them every night before i went to bed, admiring you and wondering what you would be like.

it was eight weeks later that we found out daddy had cancer. his diagnosis was like a drive by shooting. when a 37 year old's butt bleeds, you expect hemorrhoids, not cancer.

i remember the last few minutes of our normal, pre-cancer life. i was in the waiting room while daddy was having his colonoscopy. i was reading crib reviews, trying to figure out what kind of crib to get you. i wanted one that was very safe and easy to get you in and out of and modern looking and not too expensive. the test was over very quickly and the nurse came to get me. the doctor came in and told daddy and me that he had a growth and would have to have an operation. he didn't say "cancer," but his tone was serious and he told us to expect the biopsy results in a few days. the very next day while i was at work, he called to tell daddy he had cancer.

in one instant the whole future changed from something stable and predictable to murky and tumultuous. or so it seemed. but of course, what really happened was that one fantasy was replaced with another fantasy. that's all the future is: fantasy. either fantasy or a comlete blank, and a complete blank is something we just can't live with.

daddy believes you came to us for a reason. he believes that your arrival right around his diagnosis, after we waited for you for so long, was not an accident. before you were born, during some of our hardest times, he used to say that you were going to come and cheer us up.

you have cheered us up. cheered us up to spectacular heights. what a view! daddy was so right.