Letter To An Unborn Feminist

Cue the trumpets! It is with full and happy hearts that my husband and I await the most precious gift imaginable — a baby girl. She is the celebration of our 15-year relationship, a marvelous miracle currently making her presence known in utero.

Some initial thoughts:

A thing of beauty has already happened to both of us. Many things, in fact. Here is one of no small significance:

I was prescribed medication for nausea by my doctor. At the pharmacy, the price for this drug was exorbitant. So I walked away from the counter, deciding to tough it out. A female pharmacist ran to catch up with me. “There’s an over-the-counter solution,” she said, cluing me in that the pricey prescription was merely a light combination of Unisom and vitamin B-100. She proceeded to find these items, smiling as she handed them over.

See, I thought. This is how it happens. As mothers navigate the minefield that is our healthcare system, it is often the women of health care who come to our aid. The scope of this, of course, reaches far beyond the medical profession.

It is a divine sisterhood. One that I would be so lucky and honored to enter. It is a knowingness. An understanding that we need to help each other through the act of motherhood, in ways men simply cannot fathom.

Which is not to say fathers don’t possess a glorious and mysterious gift of their own. They do. But, I now wonder if they fully realize what mothers-to-be have just witnessed in the stepping down of Elizabeth Warren. Whatever your political beliefs, her exit from the U.S. Presidential race occurred in a patriarchal context with a plutocrat in the White House.

Warren, who is a mother herself, offers us this balm: “Choose to fight only righteous fights, because then when things get tough — and they will — you will know that there is only one option ahead of you: Nevertheless, you must persist.”

“Persist” is our way of life. To baby Grace, I will pass it on. Because I took it from the tribe who came before me. A family of women who:

Broke glass ceilings in the legal profession.
Became partners in their architectural firms.
Ran companies and provided for their families.
Left abusive husbands and started over.
Educated themselves and entered the workforce.

Fought and beat breast cancer.
Fought and beat thyroid cancer.
Fought and beat colon cancer.

Then got back up and mothered me.

Amazing Grace, you come from women who:
Beat heart attacks and broken hearts,
Joblessness and rejection,
Objectification and outright abuse in the workplace.

And yet, we persist… persist… persist.

In the world’s most righteous fight, for the world’s most precious gift. For you, who came to us by the Grace of God. For you, our marvelous miracle.

And now, I turn to the best in each of us, and ask that we welcome her into our lives with this in our hearts:

No matter what, we will make the future brighter for this baby girl, and for all the baby girls who will inevitably look us square in the eyes. And ask us to show them the way…