Jack,

Happy first father’s day babe. I’ve had the pleasure to watch you be a dad for 5 months now, but to be honest, I think you became a dad the day I told you I was pregnant.

For me, I felt like I became a mother that day. And I guess I figured you probably didn’t feel that way since you weren’t physically growing this baby inside of you. But now that I think about it, you stepped into that role the day I called you from Costa Rica, telling you through sobs that the test was positive. 

When I found out, I didn’t give myself time to think. I instinctually called you. I wanted you to think for me. I wanted you to tell me what to do. How to feel. I wanted you to make things okay. 

You were shocked, almost speechless, but in the shakiest voice, your first response was “it’s going to be okay, babe.”

It was going to be okay. It was going to be okay.

What you sent me immediately after we hung up. On snapchat because this was back when you didn’t believe in iphones.

When I think of my dad, and I think of why he’s such a great dad, I think of how he treats my mom. I think of how he speaks about her when she’s not around. I think about how he gets choked up when he lists his favorite things about her. I love how he writes love notes on her mirror. I love how he’s always demanded our respect for her. I know what love is because I’ve watched my dad take care of my mom for 20 years.

I’ve never felt more cared for than I did when I was pregnant. I have never felt so loved.

No one but us will never now how hard my pregnancy was, and no one but me will ever know the full extent of how you cared for me. No one will ever really know the long sleepless nights you sacrificed so you could keep me company when I was in too much pain to sleep. How you used to have to help me put my hair in a bun when i was too weak. Or how I didn’t touch a single dish or start a load of laundry the entire time I was pregnant. You took care of everything for me, so I could relax. So I could rest.

You made me feel like a goddess. You’d kiss every part of my body, loving me more and more the bigger I got. 

No craving was too outrageous or too late in the night. One of my favorite pregnancy memories was when you went to Taco Bell at midnight because I heard chicken rolled tacos were back. You didn’t even hesitate to get right back in the car and get me 6 more, 30 minutes later when I was still hungry. 

You took care of me so sweetly, so specifically, and without complaint for seven grueling months. You never sighed when I woke you up at 3 am asking for a bowl of cereal. You never made me feel crazy or irrational when I’d make us go to the doctor for the second time in a week to make sure the baby still had a heartbeat. 

You took care of both of us. You became a dad well before Sev was born.

But ohhhhh boy. When he was born. That day, you changed. In the most significant and beautiful way humanly possible. 

That day. Remember how sick I was? I just remember when they told me I was dilated to a 9, I broke down. I was too sick and too tired. I didn’t want to give birth, I wanted to take a nap. But I didn’t have a choice. The baby was coming. I started panicking when they wheeled me into the O.R. and you were trying so hard to calm me down, but I was losing it. I didn’t think I could do it. You bent down and kissed my forehead one hundred times, brushed the hair out of my face and kept repeating,

“It’s gonna be okay, it’s gonna be okay.”

I had envisioned giving birth a million times before. I thought Davis would be in there cracking jokes with the nurses. I thought Weslie would be in there giving me some sort of facial massage. I expected Courtney to be in the room, playing Tyga on a bluetooth speaker to get me through my contractions. 

So when we went into preterm labor and the doctor told us that due to the risk of emergency c-section, only you would be allowed in the delivery room, I was thrown off. This wasn’t part of the plan? What about my friends? What about a video? I’ve been dreaming of this video ever since I bought my first camera. Capturing my life’s most special moments. What about my mom, “squeeze squeezing” my hand like she did when I was little to calm my nerves?  I was panicking at my sudden loss of control. The failure to meet my expectations. I was scared because I had no idea what was going to happen. I never pictured this scenario. 

But babe, being there with you, in my most vulnerable state, the most scared I’d ever been, the most pain I’d ever been in, I looked at you and I understood. This was sacred. This wasn’t for anyone else. This was for me and you. 

You helped me push for 10 minutes, and when he came out, I didn’t even look at him, I looked at you. I watched you watch him. I laid there on the table, exhausted, and a little delirious, watching as tears welled up in your eyes. You looked at me and we both cried with each other for a few seconds, knowing words weren’t necessary. Finally the doctor said, “Hey Mom, wanna sit up and see your baby?”

You lifted my head up for me and I looked down and we both held each other and cried some more. Our perfect baby. Our son. We did it.

My favorite daydream has always been this moment. Ever since I fell in love with you when I was sixteen years old, I dreamed of a family with you. And over the years we dreamed together. You used to pick me up (down the block with your lights off, so my parents wouldn’t know) and we’d drive to some park and lay the seats all the way down and we’d dream. Where we would live someday. How many kids we wanted. What age we wanted them. We talked about names and we talked about how you hoped they would have my ears and I hoped they had your blue eyes. 

When we were broken up, during my darkest hours, this was also my most painful daydream.

The thought of you and I married to different people someday, living separate lives, made my heart sink to the bottom of my body. Would you still name your daughter Isabella like you always wanted to? (Remember when that was your favorite name lol) Would you take your family camping every summer like we planned on doing? Would I ever get to know what our baby would look like? If he would have my ears or your blue eyes? The thought kept me up at night. And it also kept us in each other’s lives. 

Like I said, no one will ever know what we went through last year with my pregnancy. But even deeper than that is the years and years that we spent growing up & growing apart and growing back together that no one will ever really know or understand. Our rock bottoms. Our breaking points. Our deep and complicated love for each other. The on and off years. The times I’d call every single friend you’ve ever had, making sure you were okay after not hearing from you for months.

Only we know what was underneath our loneliest nights and our weakest moments. 

We fell in love together, and we fell apart together. Over and over again. We fell apart a lot on our own, too. The problem was we never picked ourselves back up. We still loved each other but we were broken. We were two terribly broken people trying to build something that would last, but it never could. And it never would until we built something with ALL the pieces. My pieces. Your pieces. Our pieces. Until we healed.

Sev was what finally made us pick up our pieces. 

No he wasn’t planned, but in no way was he an “accident.” The stars aligned for Seven to be born, and it was always supposed to be me and you as his parents. Our love was always suppose grow into this. 

I know that without a shadow of a doubt, because I’ve seen you with him. I’ve seen you love him. I’ve watched in awe as you naturally and effortlessly care for him like this was your life calling. I’ve seen this love and this role change you into the best possible version of yourself you could be,

It’s all so right, it’s all so meant to be, that I cannot bring myself to believe that any part of this was accidental. 

You’re perfect, babe. You were born to do this.

And I’m just so thankful you made the choice to live. 

We’ve had our personal ups and downs over the years, aside from our relationship ups and downs. You’ve been through so much since I’ve known you. You’ve dealt with so much in your own life that I’m still learning about. You’re finally opening up to me about what happened during the times we weren’t together. The times I would use a fake account to check your instagram story just to make sure you were alive. You’ve screwed up so many times and you’ve been screwed over so many times. The last four years to me, are a result of those things. You made mistakes. You handled your pain in terrible, self destructive ways at times. But I really don’t think there is another soul on this planet that knows how shitty of a hand you’ve been dealt, besides me. The pain you’ve endured. The reason you are the way you are, the reason you feel the way you feel. The reason you let so few people in.

I knew.

And it’s why I could never stay away.

I knew too much. I loved you too deep. 

And you loved me too.

You loved me so much, that you chose to get better. You chose to live. You didn’t do that for yourself, let’s be honest, not every day, anyway. You did it for me. You did it for our family. When I got pregnant, you chose to change your entire life. You chose me, and you chose to step up. And I have never been more in love than I am with the person you’ve stepped up to become.

I mentioned how I’m still learning about your darkest hours, just as you’re still learning about mine. Because the truth is, we weren’t there for most of each others. In fact, our darkest hours were usually caused by each other. 

Someone who did know you during that time, was Hunter.

Last month when we went climbing with him, you were at the top and he and I talked for a good 15 minutes. He told me a little bit about that version of you. The you during those dark hours. The you who I didn’t know as well. The you who shut me out as a coping mechanism. The you who shut everyone out except Hunter. He told me about that you, but what he really wanted to talk about was the new you. The dad you. Baby, he couldn’t stop saying how good of a dad you are. He was gushing about you, saying how it all came so natural to you.

He told me how proud of you he was, especially after everything you guys went through the last few years. He said he loved of the person you’ve become.

I sat there on the verge of tears talking about how you’ve never made me even get up in the middle of the night to make a bottle. How every time I try, you tell me to go back to sleep.

He laughed and said, “That sounds like Jack.”

That was the last conversation I ever had with him. I’ll hold it close to my heart forever. He was so proud of you. I’m so proud of you.

I’m so proud of us, Jack.

I didn’t think anything would ever amount to the last couple years I spent traveling the world with my friends, but parenting with you beats it by a mile. It doesn’t even compare. 

When I look back on us being new parents, I’m going to remember this as one of the most blissful times of my life.

I’m going to remember us making a bed on the ground next to Sev’s crib the first night we brought him home, because his bassinet hadn’t come yet and we were too anxious to let him sleep in our bed. I’ll think of losing binkies every 10 minutes. Spending hours making the most ridiculous faces and voices to try and get him to laugh. I’ll think of Channel Orange playing throughout the house. Remember how many times we listened to that album these last few months? 

I’ll think of “The Prayer” by Celine Dion. Our magic trick. Our secret weapon. The best day of our lives was the day we found out our son instantly calms down to this song. We know it by heart now, even Andrea Bocelli’s verses because we play it so damn much. 

Last week Cat came over and we were hanging out down in the courtyard. Our balcony doors must have been open because all of the sudden I hear that familiar violin come in, and I know exactly what’s going on. We look up and see you through the windows, holding Sev, rocking him as Celine Dion echoed through our apartment complex. We laughed and kept talking, but after the song played through three times, I knew you needed back up. 

Even yesterday you called me from the car and said “Is Sev mad?” And I said “Yeah how’d you know?” and you said “I saw you were listening to ‘The Prayer’ on Spotify and just knew. I’ll be home soon.”

I think it’s naive and wrong to have a baby to “save” a relationship. But Sev didn’t save us. He healed us.

The pregnancy was hard, but part of it was hard because healing is hard. And that pregnancy was intensive healing. Healing ourselves, healing our relationship. It was hard. But I think we both decided that Seven was worth it. We decided that he deserved parents who were healed. We decided that he deserved to be born into a life that wasn’t in pieces. And when we decided this one year ago, our “pieces” were still scattered all over the floor.

But look what we’ve rebuilt.

I love you so much Jackson, seeing you become a dad has made me love you more than I ever thought was possible. I cant wait to do this forever. 

PS. can you believe he has my ears & your blue eyes?

Ind