To the Baby I’m Praying is in My Belly

[On the night before learning our IUI was unsuccessful]

Sweet Baby,

Even though right now, you are just a wish and prayer, I want you to know that I love you. You are not just a desire—you are my deepest wish, and I go to sleep every night repeating prayers that I’ve said over and over before.

Please, Lord Jesus, let our baby be in my belly.

I want to be able to tell the story of you someday—how desperately we longed for you, how hard we tried to get you. How it took a lot of prayers and a lot of medicine to bring you to us, but it proves just how special you are. That you are our tiny percentage of a chance, but that only makes you more dear to our hearts. I want you to know that you are worth every sleepless night of anxiety, every needle poke and blood draw and extensive exam, every doctor visit and procedure, every moment of panic and every tear.

I ache when I think of how hard it is for us to have you, when we feel we’ve been ready for you for so long. I wish we were people who could just decide to have a baby and it come easily to us. If that were the case, our arms would be full of babies already. But I always remind myself that if that had been the case, those babies wouldn’t have been you. And you are worth every bit of heartache and pain it takes to get you.

Tonight, I pray to God for the thousandth time that tomorrow might finally be our time to have you. A prayer I’ve prayed so much that the words of it have become mere motions and movements, like the way I place my hands over my belly and wish for new life inside me. Tomorrow may be filled with disappointment and pain, the same kind we are all-too familiar with and have experienced for years. But tonight, it’s magic, because I feel you with me. You are as close as can be without being inside me tonight, as I’m able to dream of you as though you are our reality for a little longer, before finding out if now is our time for you to be with us or not.

And if not, we will keep praying and we will keep fighting. We will be dreaming of you.

If and when the time finally comes for us to hold you in our arms, we will be ready to receive you with all the love your tiny heart can handle.

We love you.

I am not broken.