Dear Elizabeth Taylor,

Dear "Elizabeth Taylor,"

My, what a powerful being you are at the size of a cantaloupe! Do you know you make your mother feel like Pangaea breaking apart? I creak, I groan, I feel bones restructuring themselves. I am the personification of bodily plate tectonics. I am like the toys I played with in the 80s; I am Transformer. How such a little girl can make a tailbone hurt, I'll never understand. I can't sit comfortably for longer than five minutes.

Your kicks are getting stronger. I can't wait for the moment they get more forceful and I can share the physical sensation with Judge. He's been there when it happens, but can't quite sense it yet. He eagerly waits with hand on my belly to no avail. Soon though, and according to my mother, soon you'll be giving me a swift kick to the ribs. I even look forward to that, strange as it sounds.

I've never understood what it meant to be pregnant until now, for obvious reasons. I can't articulate what a miracle you truly are, even if it is a miracle that happens every day to all sorts of people. You are the miracle happening to me - shifting around inside me in the safety of your swimming pool, breathing through those embryonic gills, breaking apart my pelvic bones to settle snugly into a cozier hollow - it may be an everyday occurrence, but I marvel in every feat of your growth. I applaud those milestones as my stomach gets larger and larger, and I tear up when I think of finally meeting you one day.

Thanks for sticking around. Thanks for deciding to be the joy we wait for in blissful expectation. Thanks for being a Joiner.

Love,

Cabbage