Double Digits

One decade ago I was in a hospital room on the second floor of the women's center at Ogden Regional Medical Center awaiting the arrival of my first child. I had gone into my nurse midwife's office that day to get some samples of some medication. I wasn't due for another 8 or 9 days and had just seen him a few days earlier. There was a huge snowstorm and many of his appointments had cancelled so he (my father-in-law) said, "Well, lets take a look at that baby." My first born was to be his first grandchild. After rubbing the monitor over my huge tummy for a few seconds he said, "huhm." "What?" I asked. He shrugged and acted nonchalant, as always, but said, "Well, there's not as much fluid as I'd like to see." He asked me several questions about if it was possible that my water had broken. He did some measurements, then told me to sit tight for a moment while he talked to his colleague, Dr. Beir. He returned shortly and said, "Well, we're going to have to get you induced right away. I'll call the hospital and get things set up for you to go in the evening."

I'm not up for telling the whole labor story right now, and perhaps the only one interested in reading it in the future might be firstborn herself. But here's a quick synopsis: I labored painfully through the night, finally got an epidural about 10am, my blood pressure dropped, baby's heart rate dropped, we thought I might need and emergency c-section, nurse almost gave me wrong medication but Guy caught it just in time, they got me and baby stabilized, I was able to rest a bit, then gave birth to my gorgeous little baby girl a little after 3 in the afternoon. The nurses kept coming in to look at her. She was such a pretty baby!

I was so happy and so excited to have this baby girl. When I was only about 9 weeks pregnant, I was searching through a baby-name book. I had convinced myself that I was having a boy, but decided to look at baby girl names. I wrote down a few that I thought were cute, then I heard a very clear young woman's voice in my head say, "My name is Grace." I paused and waited for a second. "Grace. My name is Grace. Grace. Grace." I got chills all over me as the voice kept insisting that I know her name. I took a clean sheet of paper and wrote the name down several times, including in my very best penmanship. Only after I'd written it down over ten times did the feeling and the insistence go away. I was a little confused. "Who is Grace? My baby now? No, I think I'm having a boy. Maybe we will have a Grace someday. I never really cared much for the name and don't know of anybody with that name except old ladies, but I suppose its actually kind of lovely."

Silly me. I was having a girl. And her name was Grace. With Finn and Deedle (Miles and Adelaide), I very much felt like we chose those names because we liked them. With the other three, I felt like they chose their names and let us know what they were to be through various means.

Anywho...I loved that baby girl while she was in my womb, I loved her like a crazy she-bear when she was born, and I love her now more than I ever thought possible. I love these photos of her because they show so much of who she truly is. She looks grown up and beautiful. Yet she still has such the sweet innocence of my little girl.

She's been looking forward to this birthday for quite some time now. She has been reminding us for weeks that she is almost turning "double digits" and that she will remain in double-digits the rest of her life, most likely. I never really thought that TEN was such a big change, but it does feel really big when I think of it that way. I have a child who has been in my life for an entire decade! How crazy is that?

String Cheese, my funny, sweet, caring, fiesty, dramatic, creative, talented, sweet-toothed, first born--I LOVE YOU MORE THAN TONGUE CAN TELL!!! Happy Double-Digits to you!