A baby woke me up at 1 am last night, but it wasn’t the one who has a name and a face and a crib. It was a baby who is still just a fuzzy outline on a black and white print out, a heartbeat over the monitor, a life so new it can’t survive without me. It was my girl, my daughter, barely even half way here but already making herself known. I can finally feel the kicks and twists and jabs the ultrasound tech could see so clearly on her screen, the Kung Fu moves every pregnant woman anxiously longs for even as we make Alien references and complain about the punches to the bladder. They’re the closest thing to a voice our babies get, saying “I’m here! I’m living! Wait for me!”

They call this time The Quickening, a term I’ve always loved, which refers to the quickening of the baby’s movements from the slow, floaty flutters of a peanut sized fetus to flippy-floppy real-baby-sized twitches.  But for me it also refers to the quickening of time, the realization I am 20 weeks into a 40 week adventure, with 140 days (give or take) to go before I am a mother. A mother again. A mother some more. A mother of two.

The reality of that hasn’t even begun to sink in. I haven’t pulled the boxes of tiny gowns and onesies out to sort through and wash. I haven’t dog-eared the pages of my Ikea catalog with must haves for a new nursery. I don’t have a plan or a name or a calendar full of baby-prep classes. I just have a wish in my heart for her to be healthy and happy and whole, to come into our lives smiling and dancing, like I know she’s doing now in the warm comfort of my womb.

The truth is, none of the preparations matter. Having a crib doesn’t bring you a baby. Buying stuff doesn’t make you a mother. It’s a lesson every first time parent learns a few months too late, after the registry and the shower and the four hundred baby items crowding up your rooms. The fact that a parent cannot love a child with things is one of the fairest truths in this world – a millionaire has no advantage over me, nor do I rank over someone who lives in a mud hut and sleeps on the floor. All that matters is love and caring and patience and understanding, the kind of trial-by-fire lessons you only learn at 2 am when you’re totally failing and ready to give up and admit to anyone who asks that you must be the worst mother in the history of the world so would they please help you return this baby?

Oh, I have learned those lessons.

So for every week I forget to take a bump picture, for every day I don’t paint a nursery, for every kick I don’t take a moment to savor, I am sorry Baby Girl. But don’t be sad. I’ve kept all that love – the love-as-stuff, the love-as-money, the love-as-things – in my heart, where it grows right along with you, a little more every day.

Baby, I’m here. I’m waiting. I love you.