Why am I even buying a baby sweater when the prognosis is so grim?

I hold the little sweater up to the light. The sleeves unfold and gently swing across my face. It feels almost like a caress, which is weird because I’m nothing if not a realist. It’s only a sweater after all.

And yet, there’s no denying it — it smells heavenly. Maybe it is.

Tiny buttons, the softest knit, and a small tassel on the hood, nodding to classic style. This little piece of beauty captured my eye right after a little thump-thump on the screen stole our hearts.

I didn’t know much then. There was no telling how our story would end. I knew I was carrying someone special and deeply loved. And I needed to know, needed to feel, that this tiny thing truly existed.

“She’ll wear this one day!” I told my husband, pointing to the sweater on my screen.

“You mean he will,” he said with a laugh. “But anyway, we don’t buy before birth. It’s not our minhag.” He was right, my husband, minhag and all. Yet that little tab on my browser refused to budge, until one day I finally hit add to cart.

It took a few weeks for the sweater to make its way over from Paris. (“Paris?” my husband had asked, incredulous.) A short while later, our sweater found its home. Officially, it was to be stowed high up in the closet. But more often than not, I found it inexplicably pressed between my hands, in my bed, even at my computer desk. I held the sweater close throughout the pregnancy.

It was far from smooth sailing.