Close to seven months into this journey and I am only just beginning to think that you may live. You move so much now. I never mind. You rock back in forth while I sleep, waking me at dawn with kicks that come just in time to ease the panic that you are still. You're alive.

Close to seven months into this journey and I am only just beginning to think that you may live. I may actually walk out of a hospital with more than just a card with faint footprints. I may actually have a lifetime to spend with you. The idea pushes me under, like when I guide your brother's heads back in the tub to wash their hair and they panic at the water rising above their ears. Your sister left this hole, this emptiness so vast and cold that the thought of you warm against me makes the cold feel even colder.  It pushes me under and the water rushes to cover me.

Seven months in and I'm just beginning to think I may need to wipe down the crib and car seat, and pull out the sleepers your three brothers have already broken in. Seven months in and I'm growing so hopeful, so attached, so in love with this fourth son. Please live Ben. Please be perfect. Your brothers are the most delightful cacophony of noise and dirt and kisses. They smell like wind and they run and wrestle and scream like banshees and they need you to join their ranks. So don't leave littlest boy. Please stay with us. Please be my bookend and finish our family.