A Letter to my Baby

I was teaching a prenatal class in Ottawa recently and during the morning break I was telling the expectant moms and dads about my new blog which is known as The Letter Writing Revolution. This blog is my attempt at revitalizing the lost art of letter writing. I asked if any of them had every written love letters to their partners and in response I received some shoulder shrugging. I talked about my Letter to a Soldier post and of course, the post on Love Letters. One of the dads-to-be promptly added the URL for my blog into his Blackberry and announced that he was going to write me a letter. I am expecting him to. I don't take statements about letter writing lightly.

I have decided that a part of my prenatal class homework will be that they start a project to not only contribute to the revolution but to also enhance their relationship with their unborn child. I am going to recommend that they start by writing a love letter to their unborn baby. When I was pregnant with our daughter, I kept a pregnancy journal which kept track of the many details of those 40 weeks + 5 days that I would have otherwise forgotten. My husband, on the other hand, wrote a letter to our unborn baby whom we lovingly referred to as Cletus the Fetus. Here is an excerpt from that letter:

"....... You haven't even arrived yet but you have turned our lives upside down. Every spare moment I am thinking of you and how much I want to meet you. All of the sudden I notice every baby and wonder what you will look like. Will you have more hair than them or be bald as a cue ball? Mind you, with the amount of heartburn your mother is having you had better have a full head of hair (it is an old wives tale). Will you be a happy baby? Will you have chubby little cheeks? Will you have your mother's stunning blue eyes? I thought that it was not possible to love anyone more deeply than I love your mother until I heard about you. I know that it is probably a cliché but I honestly would make any sacrifice for you without any hesitation and I have not even met you yet! I know you will teach us many things about love and life and hopefully we will teach you what it means to be loved and how to love. So, take care, little one. We are anxiously awaiting your arrival but take your time and just come when you are ready. Know that you will be greeted by two very nervous but very loving parents that promise to always be there for you."

Love Dad

I plan to gently encourage the expectant parents in my prenatal classes to spend an evening writing a letter to their about-to-be-born baby.........their hopes and fears, their excitement and their wishes, what is going on in the world as they write, what their dreams are for the birth and the weeks after and of course, their feelings towards this baby that is still on the inside. Then, I am going to ask them to write a letter every year on the eve of or on a day close to their child's birthday. Imagine when the child is older and receives a box of letters that have been written over the years out of love for them......the first one being written even before they were born.

If you are expecting a baby and reading this, perhaps this is something you can consider. If you know someone who is pregnant, an interesting shower gift would be to give them a decorative box, beautiful pens and paper to begin a tradition of writing letters to their child. These letters can be given at the child's 18th birthday or graduation or for Christmas one year. As they get older, the letter can be written in the days leading up to the birthday and they can receive it as one of their gifts. This can be an annual tradition of receiving a handwritten letter from one or both of their parents. This inexpensive gift would be far more valuable than anything you could buy in a store. Guaranteed.

Julie Keon is a Certified Doula, Breastfeeding Counsellor, Childbirth Educator and Belly/Body Caster serving Ottawa and the Ottawa Valley. Check out TLWR at www.theletterwritingrevolution.blogspot.com or visit www.mncs.ca for more information on Julie and her services.