Nest And Co.

My beloved Anna,

I want to tell you that since the day we met you have occupied every second of my life and each of my thoughts. You have become essential to my existence because you have changed it forever. I’ve helped make your life a little sweeter for a while, but because of you mine will never be the same again.

However, everything separates us; our culture, our language, our alphabet, our backgrounds, our age, our professional and family situation, a whole continent … a world! But for the past few months we’ve only been living for each other. One through the other. You are committed to living up to my expectations and I never cease to appreciate what you do for me.

You are the one who finally understood my suffering, heard it before even knowing me, shared it and tamed it as if it were your own, and without even realising it. You are the only one who knows how to reassure me, appease me, restore my confidence, and heal the illness from which I am suffering –  which I was suffering.

I admire your immense generosity, and your extraordinary sense of self-sacrifice. You are so strong. So lovely, touching, endearing, delicate. To me you are all of the above because you are the woman who takes care of my child every second that passes as if he were yours, the only one who cares about him as much as I do, the only one to watch over him relentlessly, more than I can myself. You are the woman who sacrifices herself for my child as much as I would if I could. The only one, because it’s you who carries him.

Yes, Anna, you are the woman who is carrying my baby for me right now because illness has not allowed me to do it myself. This disease damaged my body so much that it could not accommodate life despite ten years of fighting against it.
So from bereavement to bereavement, I moved forward… towards You. Today you are more than my battle. You embody my victory. Like an alchemist, you have transformed the drama of sterility into an extraordinary human adventure. Mourning has now given way to life, suffering to happiness, doubt to certainty. Thanks to you.

Thanks to you I will realize a dream that here, the doctors said was impossible, the politicians decided was forbidden, the Church judged indecent: I will become a mother. 

Thanks to you the miracle will happen.

Thanks to you, I will know the unconditional love of a mother for her child.

Thanks to you I will make the man of my life a father.

Thanks to you, I don’t have to abuse my body anymore. I no longer have to worry about my future, our future.

Thanks to you I will live the most beautiful insomnia of my life.

Thanks to you I can sleep peacefully.

Ultimately, we are two strangers, who only shared a few minutes, a few looks, a few tears during our rare meetings. Since then we have been exchanging words, photos, emogies and emotions. We are so far away. And yet so close. Because by your side, I am becoming a mother. Because we are pregnant with the same child. Because with you my husband and I are building our family. This bond that we weave is indescribable. Our story is the story of two women who were brought together in life around an immensely desired being. What also unites us is what we have in common: our strength, our courage, our determination, the sense of sacrifice for our family. In short, what it is to be a Woman.

I wonder a lot about what you feel, in your body, in your heart, in your soul. Do you have fears, doubts? What are the needs and desires that drive you? What is the nature of the bond you forge with my child. How are you doing, Anna …? I don’t know. So I read the answers on your face, in the photos, in our clasped hands, in our exchanged smiles, and it is from them that I draw the story that I will tell our child.

What will happen to us when you hand over your hand, when you entrust me with this little piece of us whose body grows within you, whose love grows in me. I don’t know … Life will probably separate us, inevitably. 

But whatever happens Anna, my gratitude for the gift you give us is immeasurable and everlasting. You will have made me the woman that I finally am today.

To you Anna, and to all those loving ‘stork women’, I want to say: Thank you.