Tonight I found a poem that I wrote in December 2008.  It could use an editor, but I like how it feels.  It feels like 2008 felt. 

The Year

This was the year of surprise and fear and determination and joy:

The year of our marriage

The year of our first son’s birth.

In the first month I found out that I was unexpectedly expecting

Praying and shaking and taking a second test in a grocery store bathroom, then going to see you and surprising myself when I did not break down in tears.  It was the beginning of finding strength.

Then there were secret weeks with you and I knowing

And deciding

And planning a future

Being knit together into a family

Then telling our sisters, our families

Then promising

Speaking vows that were – that are – my heart for you

This was the year of laughing and giddiness in our graduate student apartment (which seemed to grow ever smaller as my belly grew larger,

our home and our life full and happy)

Of evenings spent swimming or running or biking or playing games while lying on our stomachs -- until mine got too big to lie on

Then you, returning to work while I slept

Working out your thesis and our future and taking care of me, of us

This was the afternoon when it was time

When you drove me to the hospital and we held our breaths until we heard his little unborn heartbeat

When I tried to be Zen and the Art of Childbirth and I became Jenn and the Art of Epidural

When he was born – quickly, strongly -- amazingly real with his deep dark eyes open and seeing the world for the first time and finding us

When you cut the cord

When you knew his name

When we celebrated, and nursed, and laughed, and did not sleep

And did not sleep

And did not sleep

And sometimes cried, but always laughed

This was the year I became we