Before I Know Your Name

Written By Amanda Finck

To the children I hope to know one day,

I’m writing this to you before I know who you’ll be. Before I know what you’ll look like. Before I know whether you will inherit your dad’s impatience or my tendency to have very strong opinions about absolutely everything.

I’m 29 years old right now. Your dad and I aren’t trying for you just yet, but we are getting close enough to the idea that you’ve started to live in plenty of our conversations: in the way we talk about the house we’re currently in the middle of renovating; the way we immediately look at each other when we see a cute little baby being adorable in public; in the quiet understanding we both seem to have that the life we’re building now is going to hold more than just the two of us someday very soon.

I want you to know that you were hoped and prayed for long before you arrived.

I also want you to know that, during the years before you entered the world, your parents unfortunately lived in a country that had decided women could be trusted with almost everything except themselves.

I’m writing this on June 24th, 2026. Four years ago today, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Gosh, I hope that by the time you’re old enough to read this, it feels impossible that I ever had to explain what that meant.

My hope is that you’ll grow up in a country where a woman’s body isn’t treated like public property the moment she becomes pregnant. Where a doctor is able to help someone because she needs help, not because she’s reached some vague ‘acceptable level’ of suffering. Where nobody has to research whether they’ll be safe in a state before booking a flight, before driving across the country, or before deciding whether it’s even safe to start a family at all.

I’m sure you know it by now: your dad’s a character.

He’s a classic Sagittarius, middle child of the world’s kindest parents, sibling to two brothers. Your dad annoyingly excels at literally everything he does, and boy, does he know it.

He’s naturally smart, athletic, charismatic, confident yet humble, and easily the hardest-working person you or I will ever know (and depending on how old you are when reading this, I suspect you may already know that last part. I’m sure he keeps you well-occupied with oodles of random chores - he gets that from Pops, who hopefully we’ve told you all about).

And as much as I poke fun at your dad for all of his many quirks, I know how very lucky I am to have found love with someone as pure and as good as he is. Your dad is one heck of a guy.

For instance, I already know he’ll be the person who researches the hell out of every travel plan we may have while I’m pregnant with you. He’s going to know the best hospital nearby, the closest airport, the safest route from A to B, and, knowing him, he’ll probably discover some wildly important detail that I never would’ve thought to look up.

This is one of the things I love most about him: he’s always taken my safety and care seriously.

He always makes me feel safe, not because he’s trying to control my life (Lord help him if he ever tried), but because he understands that protecting someone means caring about what happens to them in the sometimes-brutal world that we live in.

That is your dad.

And I promise, as your mom, I will do my part too.

I promise I will not travel somewhere while I am carrying you without knowing that, if something goes wrong, a doctor is allowed to fully care for me. I promise I will not let anyone make me feel dramatic for wanting that certainty.

You deserve a mother who comes home.

If I am lucky enough to have a daughter,

I hope you know from the very beginning how safe you are with your dad and me.

I hope you grow up feeling deeply at home in yourself, too. I hope you inherit your dad’s confidence, his work ethic, and his ability to walk into a room like he belongs there. I hope you inherit a little of my curiosity maybe, my big heart, and my inability to stay quiet when something is unjust.

Unfortunately I cannot promise you that there won’t be people who try to teach you, in obvious ways and quieter ones, how to be more palatable. Less emotional, less loud, less ambitious, less complicated. They may call you “intimidating” when you’re simply prepared, or “dramatic” when all you’re doing is responding honestly. Maybe they’ll say you’re “difficult” when you’ve simply refused to make yourself convenient.

I hope you learn early that none of those are instructions.

Your body belongs to you.

It does not belong to a religion, a political party, a stranger, a boyfriend, a husband, a judge, and it definitely doesn’t belong to the government. You do not owe anyone access to it. You do not owe anyone an explanation for it. You do not owe anyone a smaller version of yourself that makes them more comfortable.

You deserve to feel safe being soft whenever you’d like to be soft. I hope you laugh loudly, cry when you need to, and never mistake tenderness for weakness. I also hope you are loud as hell when something feels wrong, and that you know the difference between “keeping the peace” & keeping yourself (or others) safe.

I hope you find people who are proud of your mind instead of being constantly threatened by it. People who would never ask you to soften your dreams so theirs can feel bigger; who will always make room for your joy and your anger, along with your uncertainty and your ambition. Your weird little interests and every complicated thing that makes you fully yourself.

Please never confuse attention with respect or control with protection. Your dad has always made me feel safe because he cares innately about what happens to me in this world.

I hope you know that kind of love. The kind that will protect your freedom instead of limiting it.

You can be warm and formidable. You can be deeply kind and still impossible to manipulate. You can be tender and brilliant, nurturing and wildly ambitious. Know that your life will never need to make sense to anyone else before it makes sense to you. I hope you become a woman who knows herself well enough that the world cannot easily convince her she is ever “too much.” And every now and then, when you are standing up for yourself or someone else, I hope you feel a little bit of your mom in you, too. Not because I want you to become me, but because I hope you know how fiercely I’ve loved every bit of the girl you were always going to become.

If I am lucky enough to have a son,

I hope you grow into the kind of man your dad is.

I hope you are strong and smart and funny in the ways that make people feel lucky to be around you. I secretly hope your dad passes down at least some of his annoyingly capable, athletic DNA, although I suspect he’ll have you on a soccer field trying to live in his glory days whether you inherit those traits or not.

I hope you are one curious little bug. I hope your brain is always seeking more and more, and that you are the kind of person who wants to understand the “how,” learn where people come from, and uncover the “whys” behind the way the world is. I hope your curiosity takes you far enough that, when you begin to recognize things that are blatantly unjust, you feel called to do something with what you know.

I hope you grow up proud to be a boy, proud to become a man, and secure enough in yourself that nobody can convince you to feel otherwise. You didn’t create the history that came before you or choose the systems that have given men more space, authority, safety, and freedom than women have been afforded throughout so much of it. You should never, ever feel ashamed of who you are. I just hope you understand that being given more room in the world is an opportunity to notice who has been pushed to its edges, then use your voice, heart, and whatever influence you may have to make more room for them, too.

I hope you come to understand the difference between having power and using it well.

Listen the first time. Believe women without needing them to make their pain more polite, understandable, or convenient for you. Notice when a girl is being dismissed or made to feel small, and feel completely unwilling to simply sit there.

I sincerely hope women and girls feel safer, freer, and more themselves because you are in their lives. In their corner.

Protecting people never means controlling them.

Let cruelty embarrass you, and never mistake silence for neutrality when someone is being harmed.

Remember that strength has very little to do with being the loudest person in the room. True strength comes from having the courage to stay kind, to ask the question nobody else wants asked, to make sure someone gets home safely, to believe a woman when she tells you something is wrong, and to walk away from the approval of people who expect you to betray what you know is right.

That is the kind of man I hope you become. Not perfect, and not someone who performs goodness when it earns him praise, but someone whose character is clearest in the moments when nobody’s watching.

Whoever you become, I hope you find your own reasons to fight for people.

I hope you grow up seeing how much your dad and I care. Your mom, maybe a little “too deeply,” according to your dad.

Neither of us has every answer, and I hope you find your own convictions, your own questions, and your own way of moving through this world.

But I hope you never need tragedy to land directly on your doorstep before you decide it deserves your attention.

There is something so sad to me about spending the little time we are given here on earth growing hardened to people simply because we do not fully see or understand their lives.

When Roe v. Wade was overturned, I was immediately scared. I am a woman. I have dreamed of becoming your mother. The idea that politicians could have more control over a woman’s medical emergency than she and her doctor do felt horrifying to me from the very beginning. It still does. Your dad was right there with me. He did not need us to personally face the fear of a pregnancy complication, a miscarriage, or an impossible decision to understand how cruel and dangerous this could become. He understood that no one should ever have to prove their suffering is “bad enough” before they are given help.

And as I write this, there are women raising children, grieving them, hoping for little ones just like I am, terrified of having their own, and simply trying to survive a pregnancy in our country that has, again, decided their lives are still up for debate.

We want so much better for you.

One day, I hope you challenge me as a mother. I hope you make me rethink things I thought I understood. I hope you become wholly your own person, with your own mind, questions, beliefs, and way of moving through this crazy world.

Still, I hope your dad and I leave you with a heart that never finds indifference particularly comfortable.

I hope you never dismiss someone’s pain because it’s unfamiliar to you, inconvenient to sit with, or happening too far from your individual world. I hope you understand that a home cannot be truly safe when the people inside it do not have the same control over their own bodies.

And when you are old enough to understand this letter, I hope you know that I was never afraid to become your mother. I was never, ever afraid of you (okay, maybe I will be a little afraid of delivering you, because surely that is normal).

What frightened me was the world waiting for you. A world that asks women to carry so much, then decides their lives matter less once they do.

I hope that world looks completely different by the time you get here. I hope you read this one day and think, “damn, mom was being dramatic,” because that would mean the danger I feel so clearly now had become difficult for you to imagine.

I hope you inherit a country where motherhood is never treated as sacred only when it is compulsory. Where women are treated as full human beings. Where doctors are allowed to do their very important jobs. Where love is never confused with something that can be forced.

Until then, your dad and I will keep trying to do our small part. I will keep being feisty about the things that matter. We will keep building a home, a life, and hopefully a world that is safer, kinder, and more honest than the one waiting for you now.

We love you already. We cannot wait to know you.

Love,
Mom

Today marks four years since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. I originally thought I’d write something more conventional about how I’m feeling today: speak about the blatant legal map I see now, touch on the devastating numbers, the stories of women this country has failed, and everything that has changed since.

I sat with how I was feeling this morning and ultimately wanted to share a more personal side of myself today: a letter to the children Alec and I hope to know one day, about the world they may inherit, and the kind of safety we want for them.

Below are some places I hope you qts will keep reading, learning, questioning, and paying attention.

Start Here: Understanding the Post-Roe Reality

  • The Post-Roe Reality: By the Numbers by the Center for Reproductive Rights: A clear, current overview of what four years without Roe has meant in actual numbers, from state bans and interstate travel to maternal mortality and shield laws.

  • Four Years Without Roe by FEMINIST HQ: The carousel and article that inspired much of this piece, with an accessible breakdown of the state of abortion access in the United States today.

  • State Bans on Abortion Throughout Pregnancy by the Guttmacher Institute: The resource I would use when trying to understand what abortion access and restrictions actually look like state by state.

  • The Post-Roe Reality: 5 Trends Shaping U.S. Abortion Rights Today by the Center for Reproductive Rights: A helpful next step for understanding the broader legal strategy behind abortion restrictions, medication-abortion attacks, state constitutional protections, and the rights now at risk.

  • OB-GYN Care Deserts Post-Dobbs by Winx Health: A needed look at how abortion restrictions, provider shortages, and the loss of obstetric care affect far more than abortion access itself.

Extremely Important Reporting

If You or Someone You Love Needs Support

  • I Need An A: A private, up-to-date tool for finding verified clinics, abortion pills by mail, state-law information, and support options.

  • You Always Have Options: A central hub for practical resources, including care, abortion pills by mail, travel support, and legal information.

  • Find an Abortion Fund through the National Network of Abortion Funds: A searchable directory of funds that may help with procedure costs, travel, child care, and other logistics.

  • Miscarriage + Abortion Hotline: Free, confidential medical information and support from experienced clinicians for people navigating miscarriage or abortion.

  • Plan C Pills: Clear, practical information about medication abortion, including how people access pills and how to assess online providers.

Books Worth Sitting With

  • Bodies Under Siege by Sian Norris: A deeply researched look at how attacks on reproductive rights are tied to broader far-right and authoritarian politics across the world.

  • Abortion: Our Bodies, Their Lies, and the Truths We Use to Win by Jessica Valenti: Sharp, smart, relentlessly current writing about the misinformation and political machinery behind abortion restrictions.

  • We Deserve More by Nikki Sapiro Vinckier, PA-C: A compassionate, practical book about why reproductive health care so often fails patients, and how we can advocate for better.

  • A Necessary Kindness by Juno Carey: An intimate, humane look inside abortion care from a former midwife and provider who understands the people behind the politics.

  • Deep Care by Angela Hume: The history of radical feminist networks that provided abortion access, protected patients, and fought to keep clinics open.

Films & Documentaries

  • The Janes: A documentary about the underground Chicago collective that helped women access safe abortions before Roe.

  • Fly So Far: Follows Teodora Vásquez and other Salvadoran women criminalized after obstetric emergencies, showing how quickly reproductive punishment can become state violence.

  • Incompatible with Life: A deeply personal Brazilian documentary about pregnancy, grief, fatal fetal diagnoses, and the cruelty of laws that deny families meaningful medical choice.

  • The Devil Is Busy: A short documentary following one day inside an Atlanta women’s health clinic, where staff work to protect patients amid hostility and restriction.

Amanda Finck
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