One week to get real

Dear Baby X,

(Yes, that's your name for now, and you can thank your future father for it.)

It's been a week since I learned you took up residence. In that time, I've hated certain food, gotten sore breasts, cried about 45 times, and have slept about 4 hours a night. I'm excited, scared, and a dozen other hybrid emotions I can't name. Incredulous too. I doubted the doctor for a few days, trying some home pregnancy tests. The results on the two I too were both negative, but the blood tests I've been having every other day confirm you are there.

Baby, you have to know, I want you. But the minute you showed up, all I could think was "I'm not ready." I'm 39. I'm lucky to be pregnant without any medical help. But all I could focus on is that I'm not happily employed, your father and I are renters, and, most importantly, we're rather childlike ourselves. Our wardrobe favorite items are: sneakers and t-shirts. Our weekends are full of playing: biking, tennis, running, climbing. We use our adult minds at work, but we're not used to really using then at home. I think we'll be fun parents if not always the wisest ones.

I am taking you on your first trip next week: Climbing in Red Rock Canyon. After much reading and evaluation, I think it's safe for you to get one big climbing trip in while you're still the size of a pinhead. I'll stay attached to a top rope at all times, I'll rest when I need to, and I'll only do routes I know I won't be falling all over. I think we'll both benefit from the trip. My job has me very stressed, and nature always helps to calm me. Calm nerves will be good for you.

I'm hoping you'll like climbing as much as I do, or if you don't, you won't mind me being a climbing mother. I took up the sport late in life--36--and just fell in love. It's a challenge to mind and body, and it's also been a chance to get back in touch with who I was as I little girl. I climbed trees all the time, mostly to get away from my parents' divorce antics. Being high up took me away from the painful world below. Today, work disappears as I scale up the grips on the rockwall at the gym. For the time I'm climbing, I'm free in how I really always wanted the word to feel when I read about it as a student--free of judgement, expectation, deadlines, demands, and the other things I've never shouldered well.

Yup, your mother's got baggage, but hopefully I can check it before your ETA. I worked hard to shake a fair amount off during my 20s and 30s. That got me strong enough and at home within myself enough to meet your father. Now I want to be strong enough to raise you to be whatever it is you want to be. To see opportunity where I saw fear of failure or fear of people.

I've rattled on for a bit now. I'll have much more ground to cover in the days and months ahead. I have to work hard on explaining to you how the planet works right now, and how I hope it's very different by the time you're old enough to read this, your pre-memoir of sorts.