This Time Two Years Ago

... I was in the hospital waiting for my baby girl.  I'm pretty sure we were going for a stroll around the halls in a nasty pink nightgown and seafoam green socks, walkin' her out.

Lemme tell y'all a little personal story.  When I was fourteen, I went through something--as many fourteen year olds are wont to do.  My particular bout with this crisis of self landed me on suicide-watch in a juvenile looney bin ward followed by three months of outpatient group therapy and three separate (albeit unhelpful) psychiatrists.  Yeah, who'da thunkit?  Happy-go-lucky me.  I remember one discussion we had in the dreaded group in which we discussed "things to live for".  Aside from seeing myself in those other teenagers and realizing how pathetic I must have seemed, I came to a conclusion that day:  I wanted to be a mother.  My reason for staying alive, as mundane as it may be, was the desire to carry and raise a child.

Aurelia Helene Sebby, affectionately known 'round here as "your daughter", was born at 3:54am on July 14th, 2010.  She weighed seven pounds and six ounces, was twenty-one inches long and had a full head of hair.  After nine years of wanting, three years of marriage, thirty seven weeks of growing and eight and a half hours of laboring, I held my dream in my arms.

She is still my dream.  You all know how much I.adore.her.  She drives me insane; a two year old is everything they said it would be.  But she is everything else too.