Project 52 | Week 43

Happy Birthday to Abby!  She turned 9 yesterday.  NINE.  I have a 9 year old.  How did that happen?

Every mother can remember their own children’s birth stories and will eagerly replay the details (even if no one wants to hear it) with that faraway look in their eye, as if they’re searching for something in the distance.  I’m no different.  I can remember Abby’s birth as if it were yesterday.  I remember waking up at 4:30 AM on October 27, 2002 and mistaking a slow leak for some pregnancy induced incontinence (why wouldn’t I?).  I can remember calling my OB and pretending my contractions hurt way more than they did just so we could get the green light to go to the hospital to get things started.  I can remember waving away the nice attendant with the wheelchair, telling him I was fine to walk, and not 45 seconds later gripping the walls and screaming for him to return. I can remember throwing up, and moaning in agony as each contraction ripped through my body.  I can remember every inch of my daughter coming out of me, and the feeling  of  Tock’s face in the crook of my neck as he sobbed into me when my doctor raised Abby to the heavens at 12:22 pm and declared her a girl.  And then, I can remember the panic and chaos that followed—the cord wrapped tightly around her neck, the frantic call to the Pediatric Team and the long moments that followed as we waited for her first cry.  It felt like eternity waiting for her to announce her presence, and when she did, oh my god, I can remember, I can remember it all.

And now, she’s 9.   And she’s awesome.  I guess during those first moments of parenthood you just don’t realize that your babies are going to grow up someday.  Or you don’t think of it, or you just choose to ignore it.  But it happens.  One minute you’re being handed your first born child–8 lbs. of love wrapped so tightly in a receiving blanket that you start to worry that they can’t breathe, and the next minute you’re picking that same baby up from school early to take her to lunch and you can’t remember how you got here.  But I  can remember the little things, some small moments with her before she got to be this big; like the way she used to always smell like spit-up and lavender, and the three ringlet curls that hung down her neck (which I refused to cut because she didn’t grow hair anywhere else on her head),  and how when she said “ogen” I knew she either wanted me to pick her up or hold her hand, and the very first time she laughed out loud, I remember how my heart stopped and I burst into tears because I had never heard such a beautiful sound before.  I can remember so many of those little moments and I am grateful to her for giving them to me.

So happy birthday sweet Abigail Rose.  I would not be me if it weren’t for you.

here she is on our lunch date this afternoon.  (iphone pic).