Existence Day

One year ago tonight I made a list of things I knew would still be true and good one year ago tomorrow when we would receive our negative pregnancy test following our fourth round of IVF.  The list is as follows, which is a total reflection of the things that are important to me:

Tacos are still tacos
Fall is still fall
Coffee is still coffee
Jeff—always Jeff
Travel
Fleece
Hoodies

The rest of the story is here, but at 10:40 tomorrow morning the test was positive and all of a sudden Havi was in our world. If you’ve read anything in this space at all, you know my friend Kim assists in holding a good portion of my pieces together a good portion of the time, and I sent her a screenshot of this message from last year.

I also (finally) three and a half months after I received it, read the letter Kim wrote to Havi the day after she was born. Some emotions are just too big to face head on, and Kim crafts words that bring me to the ugly cry in 10 seconds flat, so with all those hormones flying around, I knew I had to wait for my sanity and emotional stability to return- which took no less than three months (and counting)- to read it.

Tonight I felt like I finally had some breathing room in my heart for her big words and wanted to somehow memorialize the moment our world went from No Havi to Havi, so I opened the letter. It turns out no amount of time guarded me from the ugly cry.

Kim described to Havi so sweetly how she had been loved and wanted long before she was born- how we woke up before the sun and lit candles and whispered prayers in our dark, quiet kitchens for years. How we bought clothes and books for her and tucked them away, knowing that one day she would be here. And how we all cried when we got the miraculous news that she was finally on her way- one year ago tomorrow. She announced Havi as having been born into a tribe of people who knew what it meant to hope, and that we had hoped for her.

She reminded Havi that we lived off the idea that joy is not meant to be a crumb, so eat up!

And so we did. We do. We fill up every day on the joy of her existence.

Happy Existence Day, Havana.
I made that one up.

**And we are thankful for so many who celebrate her with us (read: put up with our oversharing on social media).