Here you will not grow.  Here where I grew, the ridges and roads and green grasses won't ever really know you- nor you them. 

In the sticks, I feel broader somehow.  My mind stretches outward like a rubberband.  It snaps back to sting me with all I have become since walking away from this place.  So far have I gone, so much have I accomplished, so much more of myself am I.

I can see another me here nearly two decades in my own past with another child.  That other me wanted that other child to know these hills and roads and people.  I do not wish that on you or for you.  You will grow in another place.  You will return here with me, to the sticks, only to visit one Aunt and Uncle.  The other players here- people your blood related to  will not know you nor you them beyond photographs and gossip. 

You will be a child of the world yet never know the simplicity of the lives people etch for themselves here.

This is my greatest personal accomplishment beyond my children; having moved so far from this place intellectually, physical and spiritually.  My dearest embryo- you will never need to grasp your lottery ticket in the hope and belief that if certain numbers should line up- all problems will fade. 

I think of you growing inside me and I wander myself lost into our future...

Next July you will enter this world.  You will enter a world of softness and kisses.  You will enter a world of priviledge and variation.  You will travel near and far in ways and by means your mother never knew in her own childhood.  A good man will be in highest office as you pull in your first breath, taste your first milk, move onto your tiny knees to crawl...

Next July, God willing, I will gaze into your eyes and you will reach out for me- your own eyes yet unable to see your mother.

I will wait patiently.  I will keep my greatest and newest joy close to my heart.  Of all the wonderful things I have seen and experienced in my life- of all the wonderful places I've had the advantage of knowing and learning- of all my deepest desires- you will be of an exclusive pair of two- my two most cherished ones- my children.

You will widen my outlook, re-awaken dormant places in my heart, strengthen my visibilily, render my losses and disappointments void of hold in my memory, justify my own suppositions and desires, add grace to my conjecture, put pulse into me where none exists. 

Your life will add an additional dimension to that of your father, please his heart, feed his line, soften the places in a man that are only softened by the love of his child.

Each day that I find no blood, I feel larger than myself.  I feel a joy so razor sharp that I hold my breath in anticipation.  There aren't enough words and there aren't enough moments to put to place exactly how much wonder I feel that I have done this again, so quickly.  The months that seperate that which was not meant to be with what we have created are few.

Chances are that you are now on your way.

Son or daughter of mine.

Your mother is already formally smitten...