Love, Mommy

A picture of Leah and me in the hospital, the day after she was born. It’s on the first page of her journal.

When I found out we were expecting Leah, my heart was bursting with things I wanted to say to her. I didn’t know at the time that she was a girl, and I certainly couldn’t have imagined all that she is to us, but I had so many thoughts and feelings that just burned to get out. I wrote her a few letters when I was pregnant – mostly of the, “I can’t wait to meet you,” variety – and have continued them ever since.

Many of these letters have been posted here, on my blog, because I didn’t really know where else to preserve them. I imagined eventually printing the pages out for her, binding them into some sort of a book for her to read when she got older. Something about that didn’t seem quite right, though. Maybe it was that that method wouldn’t produce handwritten letters for Leah to read, or that regardless of the content of the letters, it seemed really impersonal. After talking with a dear friend, though, I have found the answer.

I have a large journal full of blank pages. I’ve rewritten the letters from the past into the book, and now am writing directly into the journal. She won’t be able to read the letters for a very long time, so I’m keeping them for her for one day in the future. My thought, right now, is that I’ll give the whole journal to her when she has her first child. It’s possible that that plan could change, but I know that I’ll know when the time is right. I just want her to know all that I hope for her….feel for her…..pray for her….in a way that she can’t grasp in words now, but can only know by how I love her. It’s a sweet way of capturing these early years, too, and of really seizing every moment. I think she’ll appreciate it one day, and in the meantime, I'm enjoying doing it for her.