To our unborn daughter

Dear little baby girl,

There is just over four weeks left before we finally get to meet you and I am getting very excited about it. We have been waiting for you for so long now and now the moment that we get to know you is almost there. I can't wait to see what you look like, what you sound like, feel your skin against mine, marvel at your little toes and fingers, smell your sweet baby smell and see you in your daddy's arms. The contrast is going to be sweet: his big and strong arms holding such a tiny little person: you!

At the same time I am still not completely used to having a now big pregnant belly. The belly which for a long time I thought couldn't hold a new life. Now you are in it, at this moment already completely formed, just filling out and getting rounder and ready for the world. Sometimes your daddy catches me admiring my belly and he teases me endlessly about it. Other than what he might think, I am not admiring myself, but I am still amazed and very grateful at the thought that you are growing in there.

Every morning I wake up with this excited feeling. In my sleepiness, it takes a moment to realise what the excitement is about and then I realise what it is. We're are having a baby! And most mornings I feel you kicking away and I cherish those moments together, lying next to your daddy. The way I feel comes close to what I remember from my birthday mornings when I was a kid, waking up excited, wondering about the party and the guests and looking forward to opening the presents. You'll soon get to experience that feeling too!

Before your first birthday however, there will be lots and lots of other things to discover. The world to start with! Quite a shock I imagine after being warm and protected for so long. I sometimes wonder what it is like for you to be inside my womb and whether you feel my caressing hands, hear your daddy singing silly songs, are happy when I am giggling away or notice when I am upside down during one of my yoga sessions. I think that you probably do, especially since I get furious kicks of protest from you when I am not sitting upright and there is not enough space for you in my abdomen. Loud noise also seems to startle you.

Hopefully the early contractions I had a few weeks back, didn't upset you too much. When I felt the contractions, at first I did not realise what they were. I just thought it was one of the inconveniences of pregnancy. Until I walked into the midwife's consultation room in tears and her reaction showed me this amount of pain was not normal. The pain scared me, I feared there might be something wrong with you, that you might come into this world way too early.

Before sending us off for more tests, the warm-hearted midwife hugged me and reassured me. She said you had gone through so much trouble to be with us, now was not the time for you to leave us already, so I was not to worry. Your daddy, being the rational person he is, later said that we had gone through a lot of trouble to have you. But I quite liked the idea of your soul finding us, just like we found you. Like we are meant to be together.

Your journey started now almost nine months ago, but your daddy's and my story is a bit longer than that. But in November 2007, you came into our lives. On Saturday the 10th to be precise. I remember well the morning in Barcelona when we went to the clinic to pick you up. Or rather, it wasn't you just yet, it was just a cluster of cells, two clusters of cells in fact. A fusion of egg cells from an extremely generous woman and your daddy's sperm. A woman that we don't know anything else about other than her age and her blood group, but to whom we will remain grateful forever, since she gave us the possibility to get pregnant and have you.

I was to go in for the transfer with a full bladder and instead of drinking water, I had a mega-sized cup of Starbucks camomile tea. I figured that a nice and relaxing warm drink, would make a far more welcoming environment for an embryo than a big balloon of cold water. We saw the two embryos on the screen, one of which was to grow into you. I felt so special leaving the clinic, knowing that I was carrying such a precious load inside me. That night we celebrated with a glass of the best Spanish Cava.

After that, the waiting began. Waiting to see if I would be pregnant. Technically I was, having two pre-embryos inside me, but there was no guarantee that you would actually 'stick'. I remember being very aware of everything going on inside me. Cycling in the November cold, feeling every bump in the road, wondering if that might accidentally shake you out. It was also during one of my rides to work that I realised that something was happening in my body: I could hardly catch my breath and felt like a 95-year old woman.

I now know that on the sixth day after conception the cluster of cells that were to become you, already started to release chemicals that caused uterine cells to burst. The pre-embryo nourished itself on these exploded cells. And it created a site to attach itself to the uterus. As the cells of the pre-embryo grew and multiplied, most of them became the placenta. The other became a very small version of you.

Nine days after the transfer I did a first home pregnancy test. Or rather, a work pregnancy test in my case since I tested on the toilet at work. I called your dad to tell him about the faintest of the faintest second pink line. He told me to take it easy and wait a bit longer. So I waited and tested again the next day. And the next. And the next. Every day the line became a little stronger. The blood test fourteen days after the transfer confirmed what we had hoped for so long: I was pregnant. Wow! Finally!

The first weeks, months even, we still found it hard to believe. Afraid that something might go wrong. It took a while before we could genuinely be happy, think about what the future might hold, how we would be a family. Your daddy was so proud. You will soon learn that beneath the rationality, he is very sensitive and tender. He was beaming with pride when he first talked about this pregnancy and if he could, he would have wrapped me in cotton wool for the first months.

Even after getting pregnant, I have occasionally struggled a bit with the idea of you and me not being genetically linked. Sometimes it made me feel a little detached from this pregnancy. It made me sad that you would probably not look like me, cry with laughter like I do (tears running down my sister's and my cheeks when we have a laughing fit), but most of all, that you would not be a combination of your daddy and me.

I do realise though that having a child is about so much more than about genes and DNA. After all, I gave you life, you are growing in my belly, you will feed off my breasts. Every little cell of your body has begun in me. And, thankfully, there is no evidence that being stubborn or strong willed is genetically inherited. There is more of an environmental link than a genetic link. So you might turn out to be just as stubborn, strong willed, emotional and clumsy as me. Lucky you!

At first I wanted you to be a poster child for egg cell donation, but your conception story is more yours and not so much ours to tell. When you are ready, we will tell you the story, show you the pictures and tell you about the steps in the process. We will tell you how desired you were and how much we anticipated your arrival. So when one of my friends asked me who I thought you would look like, I told him probably more like Jonny, you being the result of egg cell donation. But foremost and above all, I told him, you are going to be you.

I do hope that you will resemble your daddy. Apart from being very handsome, you will soon come to learn that he is a very generous and giving man and that he already loves you very much. You will undoubtedly love him right back. I am very very blessed to have him with me on this journey and I don't know what I would have done without him. He dried my tears when I was crying, he held my hand when I was in pain, he listened when I needed to be heard. He was there for me. Like I know that he is going to be there for you.

And now we're almost ready to meet you. Your tiny room is almost ready, the furniture put together by your daddy, your clothes ironed by me. It's amazing how many worldly possessions you already have. You have been given many clothes, toys, books, lotions and, my favourite, a pair of little red leather shoes. Gifts from all your uncles and aunts, great uncle and aunt, both sets of grandparents, many kind friends, relatives and colleagues. It is so special to see how many people are really looking forward to having you around.

There are a few things that still need to be done before your arrival though. Your grandmother is going to sow a canopy for over your cot. I still have to pick an outfit for you to come home in. We still need to decide on your middle name. But foremost, your daddy is going away for business tomorrow and I have told him we would wait for him to come back. I am sure we will be okay, just you and me for a few days. And then, we will get to meet you and be the family we so longed for. Like one of my friends said, everything happens at the right time.

Love,
your mummy