My dear darling baby,
It seems like yesterday that I saw the pink line announcing your presence in our lives. All I did was blink, and you’ve already completed four months in my womb! Though I am yet to see you this month (the ultrasound date is not due until tomorrow) I know you are growing in there, because, well, my belly has finally succumbed to all the stretching and has bulged out. Not that I am complaining, baby. Your Daddy loves to show off my baby bump! And there are definite perks of looking the way I do now. Just the other day, I was waiting at the bus stop, and this nice lady actually got up and offered me her seat! The same happens to me now when I travel by trains. It’s like people are suddenly nicer and more helpful now that you have made your presence known to the outside world as well. I guess I should say thanks, baby. Thanks to you, and your tiny body working miracles inside me, all of a sudden the world is so much more beautiful than it used to be! There are more smiles and definitely more warmth around now that I am glowing from anticipated motherhood.
You know baby, I had always read about how magical it is when a mother feels her baby’s first kick. Wise women also told me that nothing ever compared to feeling you move inside me. And it always sounded like something that was too good to be true (but then, that was what I had thought about you being inside me as well) And now, baby, I can safely that it is true! I will never forget the day when it happened. I was sitting on this very couch, watching a cooking show (oh, we love food, don’t we baby?) and I suddenly felt like something was tickling me from inside. It was such a new feeling to me that I smiled without even thinking. It took me some time, but then I realized; that was indeed your first “Hi” to me. Since then I have felt flutters many times, and I am still waiting to feel a full-fledged kick, but for now, each time it happens baby, you make me smile. I know you don’t like the cold that much, and try squirm around whenever Mommy has a cold drink. And I think you love music, too! My BabyBump app says that by now your ears have developed bones and you might just hear the sounds around you, which is why I like to believe that the extra fluttery feeling I get when I listen to music is you letting me know that you love it. Especially Mommy’s pie song, right baby? And poor Daddy, who feels a little left out at not being able to feel you, tries to put his ears on Mommy’s belly and listen to you move. Did you know he played song after song for you the other night? And without me having to tell him that you were moving frantically inside, he actually looked up surprised and said to me, “Whoa! Baby sounds really excited while listening to this!”
The one other time you invariably give me the flutters is when I eat fish. Really baby? Fish? Mommy’s never been a fan of fish while Daddy could eat fish for three square meals a day. And now, you got me craving for fish every single day! Daddy couldn’t be any happier. You should see the grin on his face when he sees me gobble bite after bite of fish in different forms: baked, fried, soaked in curry, dripping in spicy sauce. “Well, looks like baby’s going Daddy’s way” he announces each time. Truth be told, baby, I can already imagine you sitting right next to your Daddy, learning how to debone a fish. And how you would squish your fish with your tiny fingers and look up all proud at your Daddy, who in turn, would be extra cautious so you don’t get fish bone stuck in your tiny throat. I know I keep telling this each time I write to you, but we really are lucky to have the Daddy we have, baby. This is the Daddy who goes out of his way to get us stuff that we want to eat, like, right now, each time we want something. This is the Daddy who stormed into a restaurant demanding a table for two despite it being after hours, letting the manager know that his pregnant wife was craving for chicken so could he please let her have the chicken? This is the Daddy who secretly Googles “How to hold a newborn baby” while pretending to be all macho about it.
Suddenly baby, everything seems a little more real than it used to. Oh, I still feel overwhelmed that you are growing and moving and squirming inside me, but all I need to do is hold my round belly and tell myself that in around five months’ time, I will be holding you in my arms. And when I think of you swaddled in a blanket, with your pink face showing from the top of your blanket burrito, or the feeling of your feather soft cheeks on mine, or how it would be to kiss you for the very first time, I feel like time couldn’t possible fly any faster. I know, baby, I know, I should hold on to each moment, and cherish this time that we share, just you and I… But my sweetest, I am falling in love with you more with each passing day, and thinking of how long I have to wait till I see you makes me wonder just how am I supposed to hold all that love inside me.
Come to me soonest, my baby. And know that Mommy loves you the most.
Millions of kisses,
Mom on Tenterhooks.
Of dreaming, dabbling and daring... 