Dear "Elizabeth Taylor,"

Well, it’s less than a month now. I can’t believe it.

Further driving that point home is the fact that my cousin Jacie gave birth on December 20th to a baby boy named Bennett Alexander. I went to the hospital to meet him, barely 24 hours old, and smelled his amazing baby smell, held him in my arms and wondered what you will look and feel like when you arrive.

That means I am 36 weeks pregnant, perhaps I should say 37 since I have three weeks and three days left until the “official” due date. As I write I sense the life within me moving and although I am overjoyed with the imminent prospect of you, I feel saddled, creaky, tired, frustrated, and crawling with raw emotion. Is it me or is it you, the almost-person in my skin, who is internally reaching out and moving to find exodus in your cramped quarters, perhaps seeking answers because you are nearly aware, reeling from the sensations of being? Do you clamor to know? Are you eager to hear your Father’s music without my belly as a barrier? See the planes streak across the skyline of Birmingham out our living room window? Run giggling into your grandparents and great-grandparents arms? The stilted stagnation I feel is blind-siding me, and it colors my usual joy of pregnancy with a battle of hormones, miring uncooperative muscles, and a chaos of unknown within my mind.

Am I scared of your due date? Your entrance into this world? Not in the sense of fear of delivery and the womanly pain contained therein. I am instead afraid of all the possibles, the infinite grief at possibly losing you to horrific circumstances I will not allow myself to worry for, which would shatter me. I also fear I will never measure up to the title of Mother, of failing to inspire and stir within you your ultimate being, of failing to give you everything you need to battle and triumph in this cruel but exciting world.

So, I pray. I speak silently in prayer for the safe arrival of the thus-far muted child, I pray aloud, in your beckoning bedroom, I quietly speak in soft mother tongues to you, the life sitting directly below my heart, nestled in my sacrum, between the arms I hold you with, tightly, sweetly. After these nine months, it is true you will forever be my child and the proof of a love between your Father and myself.

Perhaps after waiting so long to meet such a lovely creation, I am anxious. Perhaps after hearing hints of this musical world, you are anxious. Whatever the reason causing my rush of emotions, I am near to time, and closer than ever to fulfilling a dream I never even knew I had. I pet my rolling stomach, attempt to quiet both our fears, and I look forward to each of our beginnings.

See you soon, and I love you.

Always,

Cabbage