Our girl is coming any day. Maybe. She'll be here, this beloved stranger, inhabiting all that we live within, changing our life, our sleep, our view of the world. Now, 6 days from due date she is an idea of a daughter, growing inside another mother.
We've named her, calling her "Johanna" as we imagine her into adulthood, growing tall and serious and funny she is Johanna. A cool confident girl, a woman steadied by her intelligence, reaching out to soothe as much as she will be open about her vulnerabilities. Maybe.
Maybe there will be another name that she will look like when we meet her. A Willa or a Lucia, a Stella or a Margot, a Frida or a Leigh. Red, probably. Screaming, maybe. For sure she will look like a newborn creature, emphasis on the creature. Not yet a "graceful light" or a "woman of god". A beginning of a human life, a new hope for so much to come. My girl oh I cannot wait to hold you! My hands are aching to feel you.
Tucked inside now her lovely, kind, generous birth mother, so tight in there almost ready to come out, this part of our growing family we've still not felt or seen, only imagined. We will take her, so raw and fresh, and say shhhh baby, momma's here, another momma, lucky girl you have two mommas, so many to love you. So much planning has gone into your life already. Here you are, so lovely, from such a good young woman who wanted everything for you and let us be the ones to give it to you. You already have a rich legacy, beautiful girl. So wanted, so waited for, so adored.
Last night, your dad and I talked about you being anything you want to be, looking however you feel most comfortable, letting you lead when you know where you want to go and how you want to get there. We talk about all the places we want to take you and your brother, showing you the world and watching your face as you experience it all for the first time and fall in love with so much more than us. You will and you should. You haven't even come yet and I already can't bear to part with you in 20 years. There's so much we have to do between now and then. Hurry up!
And we will go from there. Always loving, always protecting and always leading to your best self until you will take over and lead us to the amazing woman you have grown into.
