Three More Sleeps until Lottie

A blueprint, that is all

A start-button

A catalyst

Maybe even pixie dust

A microscopic bubble with a set of instructions that I alone build with mine- my love, my hope, my creation- and his

You are ours— we created you with intention, not a self-propelled whim— but with pleading and planning and stabbing and bleeding and everything in between

Charlotte for our maternal grandmothers

Josephine because you were the creation of my intellect and my heart (and I fancy myself Louisa)

Tonight, I can feel you hiccup and the tender thrill as your siblings whisper to me, as if I didn’t know, “three more sleeps, Mom. Three more sleeps until Lottie is here.”