seven years ago

Seven years ago today I became mother. I woke up that Friday morning feeling bone-tired and wanting so badly to call in sick to work. I forced myself to go anyway, as it was to be my last morning with my boss before she left for vacation. I told myself that I would just work for the morning and go home at lunch. But, my commute was a good 40 minutes each way and at lunch I decided to just stick it out for the remainder of the day. As the afternoon wore on, I continued to feel worse and worse. I was exhausted and I ached all over. When I came home from work that evening, the first thing I did was get into a hot bath thinking that it would ease my aching muscles. Instead, I started having contractions. Almost from the beginning, they were the sort of contractions that stop you in your tracks. My due date was four weeks away, I didn't have my bag for the hospital packed, we were planning to host a wedding shower at our house the next day and neither Jeff nor I could wrap our heads around the idea that I might actually be in labor.

After about an hour and a half of trying to walk around the house and hoping for the contractions to go away, we called the doctor who advised us to go ahead and go to the hospital. I arrived at the hospital with nothing more than the clothes on my back and a picture of our dog that Jeff had grabbed off the refrigerator so that I could have a "focal point." After the nurse confirmed that we were indeed going to have a baby that night, Jeff made the phone calls to summon our parents, his grandparents and his sister. We also had to call our friends and let them know their shower would have to be cancelled. I think we arrived at the hospital somewhere around 8 pm. Everything seemed so surreal and so fast.


Avery Alexandra was born at 1:45 am, weighing 5 lbs 1 oz and measuring 18 3/4 inches. She was welcomed by a waiting room full of sleepy friends and family and two awestruck parents who couldn't take their eyes off of her.

Today she still occasionally stops me in my tracks. And, after seven years, I still can't seem to take my eyes off of her.