Dear­est Lit­tle Em,

Wel­come to the world, Emilia Grace!

You cer­tainly took us all by sur­prise by com­ing a few days ear­lier. And you cer­tainly gave Daddy (and not to men­tion, your Aun­tie Em) a scare by caus­ing Mommy’s blood pres­sure to unex­pect­edly rise … but we’re very happy that both you and Mommy are per­fectly healthy.

I may be impar­tial, but I think you’re the most beau­ti­ful baby girl I’ve ever seen. Of course, it doesn’t help that you share the same nose as your Dad and Aun­tie … not to men­tion every sin­gle one of our first cousins! I can­not wait to meet you in per­son and hold you in my arms.

I’m not gonna lie, Lit­tle Em. The news of your impend­ing arrival back in May threw me for a bit of a loop. After all, your Uncle Apron Strings and I had been try­ing for over a decade to have a Lit­tle One just like you. And although we had resolved our Infer­til­ity Jour­ney by decid­ing to live child-​​free, I couldn’t help but feel a lit­tle off-​​sorts. This news, as excit­ing and won­der­ful as it was, elicited some painful feel­ings of failure.

And when I mean fail­ure … I’m talk­ing about myself. And only myself. After all, I wasn’t able to make your Mommy & Daddy an Aun­tie or Uncle. I wasn’t able to give your Gramma & Grampa a grand­child as beau­ti­ful as you. And I cer­tainly wasn’t able to make your Uncle Apron Strings a Daddy, just like your Mommy was able to do for your Daddy.

Most of all, I wasn’t able to give you a cousin to play with; to grow up with and share mem­o­ries with. You see … that’s what *I* had grow­ing up. And today, some of my favorite mem­o­ries involve those cousins from your Daddy’s side.

So you see, Dar­ling … back in May, I thought that I’ve not only failed every per­son in my imme­di­ate fam­ily … but that I’d ulti­mately fail you as well.

But this past Sat­ur­day morn­ing, as I looked over at my phone for news of your arrival … I saw the most beau­ti­ful thing in the world. I saw YOU.

And then I just knew that I couldn’t fail you. That I wouldn’t fail you. That I would do every­thing to make sure that a child that shared the same name­sake as myself would be loved and cher­ished beyond a doubt.

I promise, Lit­tle Em … that I will give to you what I would have given my own child. (And I’m not just talk­ing about our noses, either!) I will pass on to you my (as well as your Mom’s) love of read­ing. I will impart wis­dom to you on how to get Gramma & Grampa to give you money. And I will def­i­nitely be shar­ing with you the var­i­ous ways to push your Dad’s but­tons.  And hope­fully I can help influ­ence your taste in music as well.

But just remem­ber this, Lit­tle Em … I will love you irrev­o­ca­bly and uncon­di­tion­ally for­ever and ever.

– Your Aun­tie “Big Em”