Beginnings

I:
I never know where a story begins, or where to begin a story. This story began, I suppose, a long time ago, when Daddy and I were 17, and already talking and thinking of you. Or maybe it began Friday, our dossier finally on its way after much delay. I don't know which beginning I will tell you, or when. Perhaps both - perhaps all of them.
I always say to Daddy that I will begin telling your brother the story of his birth four months before each birthday, on the day I first went into preterm labor. And every day after I will add - "and then today, I was still on bedrest, hoping, praying, loving, and trying not to labor." So far, I haven't said that. Should a child know he was almost lost, if it shows he was infinitely loved? But how you've each come to be in our lives is so much a part of the story of US, a family most ordinary and extraordinary. I love you, as I did your brother, before I even know you. And I love you both immeasurably.