Letter to Her Unborn Daughter from Kirsten Bingham

This isn’t my birth story but a letter I wrote to our daughter Daphne a month before she was born:

Daphne. I really can’t wait to meet you. I have been feeling you move inside of me for the past 5 months and I feel like I know you. I do know you, you are our first daughter. Our first child. Every time I feel you kick or move, I say in my head “I love you too.” It is crazy to think how much I can love you without ever seeing or touching you. I just know you are going to be awesome. I love arranging your clothes and thinking about you in them. In my mind, you have dark brown hair and dark brown eyes, a lot like me I guess. But, you are a lot like your dad too — slender build, a great smile and like both of us, you’re short :) We’ll see how true my visions of you are once you grow up a bit.

It’s hard for me to imagine all that will change when you finally arrive. Its hard to imagine what things will stay the same. I’ve never experienced anything like this before. It is nerve racking, but the most exciting thing that has happened in our lives at the same time. I want you to know, and never forget, that we wanted a baby. We wanted our lives to be changed and altered by you. Before we got married, we thought we didn’t want to have kids for 5 years. I even made a bet with your Aunt Danielle and paid her $50 when I got pregnant. :) But, something inside of me changed. I didn’t have the same selfish desires. I wanted a baby to share in our happy family. I wanted you. So, 9 months after we got married we decided to have a baby and quickly after our decision, I was pregnant.

I meant to write down my feelings on the day I found out I was pregnant with you — but i didn’t. But, it felt pretty much the same as the feelings I am having now, as we come closer to your arrival: apprehensive, excited, nervous and overjoyed. We feel so blessed to have gotten pregnant fast and to have had a healthy pregnancy. It hasn’t always been easy being pregnant, but at the same time it feels so good knowing I am doing something beyond myself —we are partnering with God to create a body for your Spirit to dwell in. Now, we are just anxiously awaiting your birth. To see you, hold you and smell your good newborn smell. I am so thrilled to have you in our family. Love, Mom.

From Kirsten Bingham of evapaul design.

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Note from Design Mom: for the duration of my pregnancy, I’ll be posting advice, memories and stories about pregnancy, childbirth, adoption and growing a family on Wednesdays. You can find them all by clicking here. I’d love to hear your story or memory or advice, feel free to submit it to gabrielle@designmom.com.