I found this, unfinished, in an old notes app folder recently, written somewhere around three in the morning during the first sleepless week of her life.
I never sent it anywhere or printed it out. It just sat there, untouched, until I stumbled back onto it while looking for something else entirely.
Reading it now, years later, felt like opening a small time capsule from a version of myself I barely recognize anymore. Here it is, mostly unedited.
A Letter To My Newborn, Written In the First Sleepless Weeks
It’s the middle of the night again, and you’re finally asleep on my chest, which means I should be sleeping too, but I can’t stop looking at you long enough to close my eyes.
I don’t know you yet, not really, not the way I will eventually. Right now you’re mostly a collection of small, specific things: the exact weight of you, the sound you make right before you wake up hungry, the way your hand wraps around one of my fingers without even trying.
I’m exhausted in a way I didn’t know a human body could be and still function. I’m also more awake, in some deeper sense, than I’ve ever felt before in my life.
I don’t know yet what kind of person you’ll become. I don’t know if you’ll be stubborn or easygoing, loud or quiet, the kind of kid who talks early or the kind who takes their time getting there.
I already love you in a way that doesn’t seem to depend on knowing any of that yet, which is strange and enormous and slightly terrifying to sit with at three in the morning.
I keep thinking about all the versions of you I’ll get to meet over the years, and grieving, a little, that I’ll only ever get each one once before it changes into the next.
I’m scared I’ll get things wrong, probably often, in ways both small and occasionally not so small. I hope you’ll forgive me for the ones that matter, when the time comes.
I’m going to try to actually see you, the real you, as you become whoever you’re going to be, instead of some idea of who I expected before you arrived.
Right now, at three in the morning, none of that future feels real yet. All I have is this exact moment, your weight on my chest, your breathing slowing into real sleep, and more love than I know what to do with.
What it felt like to find it again, unexpectedly
I wasn’t looking for it. I was searching for an entirely unrelated grocery list when the title caught my eye, half-forgotten, tucked between mundane notes from the exact same exhausting stretch of life.
Sitting on the kitchen floor rereading it, years later, in a house that now has an entirely different rhythm than the one described in those exhausted middle-of-the-night sentences, felt like being handed a message from someone I used to be.
Reading it back, years later
I’d genuinely forgotten I wrote most of this until I found it again, which feels almost like reading a letter from a stranger who happened to know exactly how I felt that specific week.
So much of what I worried about back then turned out fine, in the ordinary, unremarkable way most things do. And a few things I never anticipated turned out to be the hardest parts instead.
She’s not a newborn anymore. She has real opinions, a real personality, entire jokes she tells on purpose now, none of which I could have predicted from that exhausted three-in-the-morning version of myself.
What that letter got right, that I didn’t expect
The line about grieving each version of her before it changes into the next turned out to be the truest thing in the whole letter, more than I understood at the time I wrote it.
I really have gotten to meet a whole sequence of different versions of her, the newborn, the babbling one-year-old, the opinionated preschooler, each one genuinely gone once the next one arrives.
I didn’t know, writing it exhausted at three in the morning, how literally that would play out. I just knew, instinctively, that something about this was already slipping through my fingers even as it was happening.
What surprised me most, comparing that letter to who she actually became
I remember specifically wondering, in the letter, whether she’d be loud or quiet, and the honest answer turned out to be both, depending entirely on the setting and who she’s with, a nuance three-in-the-morning me had no way of anticipating.
None of my specific guesses about her personality turned out fully right, and none turned out fully wrong either. She became someone genuinely her own, built from pieces I couldn’t have predicted no matter how carefully I tried to imagine her ahead of time.
What I wish I’d written down more of
I wish I’d kept writing these letters more regularly, not just that first exhausted one, since the specific details from each stage fade faster than I expected them to.
The exact sound of her newborn cry, the specific weight of her at two weeks versus two months, details I was certain I’d never forget, are almost entirely gone now, replaced by a general memory without the sharp specifics.
That one letter is one of the only concrete records I have of exactly how that period actually felt, rather than the smoothed-over version memory tends to leave behind instead.
What I’d tell that version of myself now
I’d tell her the exhaustion does end, genuinely, even though three in the morning made it feel permanent and endless at the time.
I’d tell her she got more right than she gave herself credit for, and that the mistakes she was already bracing for mostly turned out survivable, for both of us.
I’d tell her to actually enjoy the newborn weight on her chest a little more, instead of mostly just surviving it, because that specific weight disappears faster than anything else about this whole stretch.
If you’re in your own version of those sleepless first weeks right now, holding a baby you’re still getting to know, this honest look at what motherhood actually feels like might meet you exactly where you are tonight.
Write something down now, even something unfinished and half-coherent at three in the morning. Whatever version of you exists years from now will be genuinely grateful you did.
What the letter didn’t mention, that I remember anyway
Rereading it now, I notice everything the exhausted three-in-the-morning version of me didn’t have the presence of mind to write down, the specific smell of her hair, the sound of the monitor static, the particular blue of the very early morning light through the nursery blinds.
Some of these details survived in memory without ever being written anywhere, proof that not everything worth keeping actually needs to be recorded to last, even as so much else genuinely did slip away unrecorded.
Why I’m sharing this publicly now
I almost didn’t publish this, since it felt private in a way most of what I share doesn’t, written for an audience of exactly one who couldn’t even read it yet at the time.
But rereading it made me think of every other exhausted parent somewhere in their own three-in-the-morning stretch right now, wondering if any of what they’re feeling is normal or worth remembering.
If this reaches even one of you tonight, sitting with a baby on your chest, unsure if you’re doing any of this right, I hope it helps the way finding my own old letter helped me.
What I hope she feels reading this herself, someday
I imagine handing her this letter years from now, maybe when she has a baby of her own, watching her read the exhausted, half-formed thoughts of a version of me she never actually got to meet directly.
I hope it tells her something true about how completely she was loved, even before I fully knew who she’d turn out to be, back when all I had to go on was her weight on my chest and a fierce, unearned certainty that I already loved her entirely.
One more thing, for whoever needs it tonight
The specific exhaustion you’re in right now is temporary, even though it genuinely doesn’t feel that way at three in the morning with a baby who won’t settle.
Somewhere down the line, you’ll find your own version of this exhausted, three-in-the-morning honesty worth writing down, and I hope, whenever that moment comes, you actually take the five minutes to do it.
The love you’re feeling right now, the enormous, slightly terrifying kind that doesn’t seem to depend on knowing who this tiny person will become, that part doesn’t fade. It just keeps finding new things to attach itself to as they grow.
