Some personal news

I am not patient, and this particular process has involved a lot of waiting. I have been itching to write this Substack and share our family’s big news, and the day is here!

We are having a second kid (via surrogate) in February! 

Ever since that faintest of pink lines showed up (and friends confirmed that we weren’t seeing things), the three of us have been over the moon. I am thankful for the surprising fast-and-then-slow way we became Khalil’s parents, and I feel lucky to experience a new kind of magic with this baby. 

Knowing that as we are living our lives, a blastocyst was implanting and dividing and a little heart was growing, and tiny fists clenching has been absolutely thrilling (for Khalil especially). It’s a particular awareness of miracles. I whisper to the baby at night before sleep and tell her that she is doing a really good job in there. (The DNA tests tell us it’s a girl). There is a whole life beginning right now. What a world. 

When I asked Khalil how to tell you all, they made a video.

Thank you for caring about my news, professional and personal. We feel very, very lucky. 

In honor of a new baby, I’d like to share a poem that I had taped on the wall next to Khalil’s rocker when they were a baby. It’s one that I have insisted on reading out loud more often than anyone would like, and one that almost always makes me cry.

You Begin
Margaret Atwood
1987

You begin this way:
this is your hand,
this is your eye,
that is a fish, blue and flat
on the paper, almost
the shape of an eye.

This is your mouth,
this is an O
or a moon, whichever
you like. This is yellow.

Outside the window
is the rain, green
because it is summer, and beyond that
the trees and then the world,
which is round and has only
the colors of these nine crayons.

This is the world, which is fuller
and more difficult to learn than I have said.
You are right to smudge it that way
with the red and then
the orange: the world burns.

Once you have learned these words
you will learn that there are more
words than you can ever learn.

The word hand floats above your hand
like a small cloud over a lake.
The word hand anchors
your hand to this table,
your hand is a warm stone
I hold between two words.

This is your hand, these are my hands, this is the world,
which is round but not flat and has more colors
than we can see.
It begins, it has an end,
this is what you will
come back to, this is your hand.