I found the dress in a secondhand store. It was brown, with sprigs of cheery flowers, in a size 2T, so I bought it on impulse and hung it in your closet, where it sat waiting for you. That’s how sure I was that you were going to be a girl. I could have confirmed my intuition: We’d charted the helix of your DNA, and the results were in an envelope tucked away in a cupboard. But I never looked. And every night, I felt you brushing your fingers, rubbing your knees, and tapping your toes against me, and I thought to myself, “You sure are busy in there, little girl.”
Then, late one night, you decided it was time. The contractions came on out of nowhere, hard and painful, taking my breath away. They were so bodywracking that I couldn’t even walk when we got to the hospital. Your dad and I had gone to the wrong elevator, you see, and it was locked at night. So there we stood–me doubled over, with tears in my eyes–until some nice older couple called for an orderly and a wheelchair. My water broke in the elevator, pooling in the seat, while I apologized for the mess . . . the bother.
As soon as they got me cleaned up and into a gown, they connected us to machines and monitors. I wanted to do this differently, but I was trying for a vaginal birth (after having a C-section with your sister), and they told me this was the safest way. All through that long night of labor, I listened to the sound of your heartbeat filling the room. The thump of it kept slowing with each contraction, filling me with terror. Finally, after the exhilarating effort of trying to push you out, the doctor told us that the cord was around your neck–stealing your oxygen–and we needed to get you out right away.
As they prepared me for surgery, the nurse told the doctor, “I can’t find a heartbeat at all,” and everything went cold and blank, as I struggled not to lose control to the fear. The next thing I knew, I could hear your lusty cry–and your dad exclaiming, “It’s a boy!” It’s a wha–?! It’s a boy?! And then you were there before me, with the longest, darkest eyelashes I’d ever seen on anyone besides your father. I looked at you–and you looked at me–and in that moment, I became the mother of a boy. And he was the most beautiful boy I’d ever met.
My whole life, I’d associated the idea of a little boy with stereotyped notions of bullies and buzz cuts. But you defy every stereotype, my little one. You are sweet and sunny–and you laugh at everything and everyone. You are easygoing and insatiably curious. Your blonde hair often decides to stick up in all directions. You like to touch my face when you nurse, and you always rub at your ears when you’re sleepy in my arms. And I find myself so deeply, madly in love with you that it still shocks me sometimes.
Yesterday, when your dad and I picked you up from daycare, he ran in ahead of me and was holding you in his arms when I entered the room. You reached across the space between us, looked into my eyes, and said, “Mama!” in the clearest, loveliest, little-boy voice. Though you’ve said “ma ma ma ma ma” to me many times before, this was the first time that I really knew you were calling me by name. I will always answer your call, my sweet one. And I will never make you wear that brown dress. Though if you grow up and want to wear dresses, that will be fine by me, because I will love you just as you are–any way you are–until the end of time.
Love,
Mama