April 3

Dear Flower,


Last night, I went for a walk. You were content in Daddy's lap, watching your favorite YouTube videos. I put Spark in the bath and told him to be sure to scrub behind his ears. I couldn't quite figure out why, but I felt drawn to the road and the air of the early evening. The sky rumbled a bit with some distant thunder, and I felt the clouds might release rain at any moment.


I walked and felt a few sprinkles of rain on my face. Something nagged at me, but I couldn't quite figure it out. There's a bookstore about a half mile from our house, and I decided to walk in that direction.



Suddenly as I made the final turn to head to the bookstore, I realized what was bothering me. Exactly a year ago, almost to the minute, I had done the exact same thing except I wasn't alone. Spark and you (in utero) were with me.


The night before you were born a year ago was a similar night. Some threatening sprinklings of rain, some distant thunder, and an umbrella accompanied Spark and me as we walked to the bookstore. I watched him trot ahead of me for a minute, and I thought about how soon we were going to met you, his baby sister. He dropped back some, reached for my hand, and looked at the sky. "It's raining, Mommy," he said. I realized it was raining, so I opened our umbrella and held it over our heads. As we kept walking in the rain towards the bookstore, I felt the first, smallest pains in my uterus.


Through the night, I slept fairly well, knowing I was in the earliest stages of labor, wishing that you would come on already and get out. By early the next morning, we were at the hospital, and I stripped down to the vaguely familiar, tie-in-the-back gown. A few hours later, you slithered into this world and onto my belly, into my arms, into my heart forever.


Happy first birthday, baby girl.



Love,

Momma