It was a Sunday morning, and I remember not feeling completely ready to tell Liam about the next chapter of our family.
Not because we weren’t excited. We were.
But because I had no idea how he would feel about becoming a big brother.
For four years, he had been our only baby. Our first everything. The little boy who made us parents and completely changed our lives.
And now, there was going to be someone else.
Would he be mad at me? Would he understand what it really meant to have a sibling? Would he ask questions I couldn’t quite answer? Would he be excited? Confused? Would he wonder if this meant there would be less of me for him?
I had so many questions, and somehow, so many feelings all at once.
We decided to tell him through a story.
We told him that we wanted to read him a book and asked him to meet us on the couch. Kita and I had set up the Nikon because I really wanted to capture this moment. It felt too big not to record, the kind of family memory I knew I would want to come back to years from now.
The book we chose was You’re the Biggest.
Kita read the title to him, and then he read the entire story while I sat behind Liam, snuggled close to him.
And somewhere in the middle of that little moment, I started to cry.
I could feel my lip quivering. I felt the tears slowly roll down my face, but I didn’t want Liam to look at me and think something was wrong. I didn’t want him to ask, “Mommy, what’s happening?” because I didn’t want my tears to make this feel sad.
So I softened my breathing, stayed still, and didn’t wipe my face.
I just listened to Kita read and watched Liam.
I wanted to remember his face.
When the story was over, the first thing out of his mouth was:
“Why?”
And then came the questions.
Kita explained that there was a baby growing in Mommy’s tummy and that he was going to be a big brother.
Liam’s reaction was basically, How?
A baby was where?
How could there be a baby in Mommy’s tummy?
And honestly, I loved that.
I loved watching his little mind try to make sense of something so completely new.
He wanted to know everything. He wanted to understand it in the only way he knew how by asking questions.
At the time, we didn’t know if the baby was a boy or a girl either, so of course that became one of his questions.
“Am I going to have a sister or a brother?”
I remember how much curiosity he had that morning. He wasn’t just hearing that Mommy was having a baby. He was trying to understand what this new person meant for him.
And for me, that was the part that made my heart feel the fullest.
Because in some ways, telling him was also a relief.
We didn’t have to hide anything anymore.
I could finally explain why Mommy had been throwing up so much. Although, if you ask Liam, Mommy was obviously just “vomiting like a volcano.”
He had recently become obsessed with volcanoes, so that became his little running joke.
And somehow, that made everything feel even more like us.
We thought we had captured the whole thing on camera.
We hadn’t.
Of course, the camera battery decided to shut off and stopped recording.
I cried about it.
Not because the moment was gone, we still had it. But because I knew we couldn’t recreate that first reaction. We could read the book again. We could film it again. We could try to capture the same conversation.
But we couldn’t recreate the way Liam looked at us that very first time.
His genuine confusion.
His questions.
His curiosity.
His little face trying to understand that his entire world was about to change.
And maybe that’s okay.
Because life is like that sometimes.
Everything doesn’t get captured perfectly. Some of the most meaningful moments aren’t recorded at all. Sometimes they’re just ours to carry.
I’m grateful that we still have the memory.
I can close my eyes and remember sitting behind my first baby, listening to his dad tell him that he was going to be a big brother while I quietly cried behind him.
I remember thinking about how much I loved him.
And how badly I wanted him to know that becoming a big brother would never make him less of my baby.
He’s my first.
He is the little boy who made me a mother.
And if I’m being completely honest, one of my biggest fears about having another baby has never really been about loving the second child.
I know I will love this baby.
My fear has been wondering whether Liam will ever feel the difference.
Will he feel like there’s less of me?
Will he wonder why Mommy can’t always stop what she’s doing?
Will he think the baby replaced him?
Will he feel forgotten in the moments when the baby needs me more?
I know these thoughts are part of motherhood. Part of the mom guilt that comes with trying to imagine how you can possibly divide a love that has always belonged to one little person.
And maybe that’s what I’m learning.
I’m not actually dividing my love.
I’m making more room for it.
There will be changes. There will be hard days. There will probably be moments when I feel stretched in ways I’ve never felt before.
But I hope Liam grows up knowing that becoming a big brother didn’t take his place away from him.
It gave him a new place in our family.
And maybe one day, he’ll understand just how special it was to watch him become the biggest.
For My Firstborn, and My Secondborn
I think that’s why I’ve been wanting to write two letters.
One to the little boy who made me a mother.
And one to the little baby who is making our family four.
Because before this baby arrives, there is a version of our family that exists only in these quiet moments—the three of us, figuring out how to become four.
So I want to remember both sides of this story.
I want Liam to know that before he ever became a big brother, he was simply my baby.
And I want this baby to know that before we ever held them in our arms, they were already loved, already prayed for, already changing our family in ways we couldn’t yet understand.
Two children.
Two completely different beginnings.
And one mama trying to hold all of it at once.
Maybe that’s what this season of motherhood is really teaching me:
That my heart doesn’t have to choose between who they were, who they are, and who they’re becoming.
There is room for all of it.
And there is room for both of them.
My firstborn.
And my secondborn.
Loved differently.
Loved completely.
And loved from the very beginning.
