Dearest Little One: Introductions

Dearest Little One,

It's 11:11 p.m, on October 25th, 2011, and tonight, I'm writing you the very first memoir of many more to come.

You're young, little one... too young to hear my voice, and too young to understand my words, but I hope one day you'll find solace within these carefully crafted posts.

Dearest Little One, today is our beginning.

Before I start engulfing your memory with tales of tiny kicks and midnight cravings, I'm going to start by introducing the two people in this world that will love you until the impossible day in which forever fades away.

I know, dear Little One, that by the time you read this, you will think to yourself that you already know who we are....and you're right. But what you may not know, what you've probably never discovered, is who we were before you graced our lives with your swiftly growing heart, mind, and tiny toes.

Dearest Little One, although this may seem hard to even imagine, I wasn't always known as "Mom." Before you were even an idea, I was just Andrea, a young military wife, student, and explorer of the unknown world. Before my heart revolved around you, there was your father (don't worry, I'll introduce him soon) who swept me off my feet and opened a world that previously was nothing shy of just a dream. Before my days were spent thinking of names, and nursery designs, my thoughts were tangled in the complex worlds of college, marriage, and the unknown.

Dearest Little One, before you were mine, I had one sheer accomplishment....

Meeting the man I am about to introduce.

Dearest Little One, your father is the best man you and I will ever know. Now, I know I don't have to tell you this; by the time you read this, he will have saved you a thousand times, protected you, comforted you, lent you a shoulder to cry on and a joke to clear up even the darkest of days...but I want you to know how he loved you before you even took your first breath. I want you to know that you melted his heart with your heartbeat, and that your picture brings the brightest smile to his face. Dearest Little One, I wish you could have seen his smile when the doctors announced that we were expecting. Amid the panic that swallowed my breath that day, I found time to look at your father, and I'll tell you, my love, that he loved you from the moment we heard that first "congratulations" on your behalf...I have never seen him smile so genuinely. I could tell that he had already fallen in love.

Dearest Little One, I won't pretend that everything was built upon sunshine and rainbows. I won't pretend that your presence didn't knock us both flat on our backs and I won't pretend that we were prepared or planning. I won't deny that I was rendered speechless when that pregnancy test came back with a giant + sign, and that for a moment, I felt so incredibly lost, my emotions spinning, suddenly out of control. I was at one time young... and before you, I didn't understand what a family could bring.

But you brought about a love that people only dream of, demolishing the value of ultimate knowledge, or control.

You, my darling little one, have swept us away.