Squirt!!!!  We saw you and heard you for the very first time today.  It was incredible.  Our new OBGYN John Francisco Cabrera (he’s Cuban) put the slimy stuff on my belly and then rubbed the wand on it and next thing we knew, bam!  There you were in your little chicken-like self.  You had a yolk near you and a rapidly beating heart outside of you. When he pointed that out he turned on the sound- did you know that your little heart is beating about 150 beats per minute right now?  It sounded like a flutter of resonating wings.  I cried and your Dad got so excited I thought he might hug Francisco.  We like our OBGYN, we decided, mostly because he is from Cuba and therefore, well, just cool.  He has this slightly nerdy demeanor that we are convinced will lighten up once he sees how charming we are and decides we are his favorite couple EVER. We are going to make him love us with all the Latin passion he can muster if it’s the last thing we do.  Once your Papa finishes making a delicious salad for us tonight, he’s going to scan the photo of you so we can put it up on the blog.  So many people are going to be so excited to see you too. You look good Squirt, keep up the good work!

Here you are…

On another note, your Dad and I are also planning our wedding right now and I wanted you to know something, that yes, you were conceived out of wedlock but not out of love.  Some may say that it was soon that your Papa and I decided to get engaged and have you after only three months of falling in love with one another but you need to understand something, relationships, at least for me, were like trying to find the perfect Prom dress. I was eternally at this giant department store, totally overwhelmed and underskilled for such a task but determined nevertheless to find that perfect Prom dress. I knew it was out there, I just had no clue how to find it.  So I began by trying a bunch of them on.  It was so confusing Squirt, each dress was so different yet so similar in so many ways.  It was like I had this idea of what the dress should look like so I kept trying on different variations of the same style and it just never fully fit right.  Some would fit better than others and I’d think- yeah, okay, maybe this is the dress!  But then after wearing it around the store for a bit the zipper would come undone or it would pinch in a weird place and then suddenly I’d realize it was totally the wrong dress for me and I’d get out of that thing as fast as I could.  Eventually, it got so heartbreaking looking for this damn dress that I just gave up.  I sat crying on the floor of the department store, thinking I’ll never go to the prom when suddenly a friend of mine picked out this totally different kind of dress I’d never even looked at before.  It was a completely different style than I was used to and I was not sure it would even fit me, but after some urging I decided to try it on.  What did I have to lose?  And the most amazing thing happened, I put that dress on and the first thing I noticed, before I even looked in the mirror was that it was the most comfortable thing I had ever put next to my skin.  I ran my hands over my body and I felt like me. Like the me I’d always wanted to be.  It was like a second skin.  And when I turned and looked in the mirror I almost burst out crying because I had never looked so beautiful in all my life.  This dress hugged every curve in exactly the right way, it accentuated the positive and artfully hid the negative. It made me feel like a princess. It took my breath away.  I had never thought a dress like this, so sweet, feminine, and strong would make me feel this way.  My body was singing.  And that was what falling in love with your Dad was like.  OF COURSE, I would buy the dress and you damn well better believe we are going to the prom.  We are going all the way.  We were meant to meet and marry and have you.  That’s just how it is.  You don’t argue with fate when it wraps you in its warm embrace.

You rock squirt.  I love you so damn much it makes me cry just thinking about it.

xx
mom

p.s. after the ultrasound and blood work today for some reason I was obsessed with having a whopper with cheese.  Now Squirt, I have never before in my life ever wanted a whopper with cheese or even come within 50 feet of a Burger King, but today that all changed.  Your Daddy said I deserved it after they took all that blood and I tell you, that whopper never stood a chance once I had it in my grubby little hands.  It lasted all of 5 minutes.  Very strange moment for me.  And one I hope we don’t plan on repeating because I felt pretty gross the rest of the day burping that shit up and eventually puked before yoga.  So- interesting anecdote but hopefully the first and last of it’s kind.