Dear "Elizabeth Taylor,"

First things first - you're so huge. I know I'm only going to get bigger with your weight, but I'm already impressed with how big you are.

I've been reading poetry aloud to you. I'm not sure if Pablo Neruda comes through and the beauty of his words, but it feels good to talk to you in verse. I imagine you as my little audience of one, strung upside down by an umbilical cord listening to my poetry reading. I walk around the echoing room and use the cadence I imagine real poets use when they are asked to perform their original work. I know you at least can hear the muffled sound of my voice and that pleases me. I want to share with you the lines which so inspire me, and I hope you will grow to love them too.

Your Father and I practiced last night for an upcoming show. We sang and sang and I felt you move within me. Perhaps I imagine dancing, but you're probably shifting uncomfortably thinking, "Geez Mom, why so loud? Don't you realize all the noise I have going on in here? Intestines, stomach gurgling, blood flowing?" I wish you would come out singing harmony with him on your first wailing note, hitting the Third while he cries aloud in happiness and cuts your cord. I imagine seeing you for the first time and I tear up - I suppose this is what it means to expect a child. Never before have I simply imagined a baby of my own and dissolved into tears of happiness. You have truly made me a sentimental softie.

Oh, and by the way, you have turned my bellybutton brown. For real. It seems as if I have an eternally dirty bellybutton. They don't put that in the pregnancy books. But hey - I figure you're worth it.

I look out on the skyline and I think of you here, with us, among the books and records and instruments and family. I imagine your place within all the madness that is our life and I hope you like it. I can't wait to meet you. I picture you in my head - will you get my dark hair? Your Dad's brown eyes? My long toes? I guess we will wait and see.

I love you.

Always,

Cabbage

P.S. I may have figured out a name, but it's a secret.