Dear Daughter: Your belly button

Oh sweet baby girl flipping around in my stomach as I type this.  I have all these dreams for you.  Sweet wonderful dreams of what you will be like when you make your entrance into this world, how we will snuggle and laugh and play together.  And so many happy thoughts about how your brother will just fall madly in love with you and you will be the perfect addition to our little growing family.  Then dreams of how the rest of your life will go from school to college to meeting the man of your dreams.  

In the meantime, while you continue to bake for a few more months inside me and grow, grow, grow…your belly button is playing a key part to all that growth.  Yep, that crazy little thing that everyone has on their stomach that their brother is enamored with (and I’m sure you will be some day too) is how I’m feeding you and supplying you all the nutrients that you need.  It’s crazy, right?  Yes it is quite the miracle.  And when you make your debut into this world, your dad will take the scissors (the medical ones, don’t worry) and cut your umbilical cord.  It’s crazy that just with that one swift cut, our physical connection is officially gone.  The doctor will tie it off and then we’ll spend the first few weeks of your life avoiding the weird brown thing that sits on your belly button until it falls off.  And who knows what happens to it then.  Some parents keep it – I’m here to inform you that we are not those parents.  I have no idea where your brother’s is.  And I’m fine with that. 

So let’s get the real point of this letter.  The use of your belly button AFTER you make your world debut and the little brown thingy falls off.  I’m sad to inform you, that I do not think there really is a use for it.  Just kind of serves as the center of your stomach.  And provides a toddler entertainment to stick their finger in it when they are little.  However, as you grow from a toddler into a teenage girl and into and “adult” – you might see something that other girls choose to partake in.  I guess they are upset that they have found no other use for their belly button up to this point in their life and it feels like they are being unfair and want to give it attention. 

Yep – they want to pierce their belly button. 

They might have already asked their parents before they were 18 and some wait until their 18^th birthday and make it their first “adult” decision.  There are some things that I plan to never tell you about what your father and I did growing up – but this one I will not hide from you.  I was one of those girls.  On my 18^th birthday, I went to the tattoo and piercing parlor in Manhattan, KS and gave my belly button the attention I thought it deserved after 18 years of serving little to no purpose.  I walked out in a bit of pain, with a  shiny new piercing and called my dad (you will call him Papa) and told him about my first “adult” decision.  Oh man oh man oh man. 

Please don’t repeat this.  Because 2 years later, your father came around and convinced me that my belly button didn’t actually need that attention that I thought it needed and out when the belly button ring.  I was 20…see the math there?

I am now 28, almost 29 years old, and am almost 31 weeks pregnant with you.  And guess what?  There are so many days in this pregnancy that I look back to my 18^th birthday and so wish I wouldn’t have pierced my belly button.  And I went through the same thing with your brother – but I didn’t feel like he needed this advice because I’m hoping a belly button piercing will not be something he and I will have to talk about.  A tattoo – maybe, but not this.  Nope, this is advice for you girly.  My belly button HURTS during pregnancy.  8.5 years after I took the dang thing out, as my stomach stretched the first time with your brother, the area just above my belly button was SO sensitive.  There were days when I could barely touch it. I read it was due to the scar tissue left over from the piercing – yes, that piercing almost 10 years ago.  I thought it wouldn’t be an issue with you, but it seems to be worse.  As you continue to grow (hence, I continue to grow and stretch in my stomach), it still hurts!! 

So I’m sharing this information with you as your already crazy mom.  I’m sharing this with you while you are still in utero – that I will not give you permission to pierce your belly button when are under my “law” and when you turn 18 and are legally allowed to make that decision for yourself – I’m hoping you won’t either.

Because baby girl – your belly button is doing its most precious and wonderful job it could and will ever do of supplying you with nutrients from me.  And really, that’s the pinnacle of its life.  So do it and yourself (and me) a favor, and just stick to piercing your ears.  Trust me – when it’s time for you to have your own babies someday – you will appreciate this motherly advice I gave you. 

Love,

Your mom