Friday, September 29, 2017

IT'S A GIRL!


Almost six weeks ago my life changed forever.  One might think I would not see this moment as life changing but for me it was imprinted on my heart.  After I placed the nurse on speaker phone and she said, so you are sure you want to know the sex and affirmatively responding she said the words I never believed I would ever hear.  “It’s a girl!”


My husband screamed and ran around the house yelling Yes! Yes! like he had won the Super Bowl and I sat quietly smiling in disbelief.  I may have asked if she was sure.  I was in utter shock. It was the only thing I felt was being completely floored because I was absolutely convinced that the baby would be another boy.


Perhaps it was self-preservation.  Certainly there was a part of me that recognized there would be some disappointment if I never had a girl.  After all we were convinced the opposite with the boys.  Still in those first few moments I was afraid to believe it and yet she was.


She!  Finally after being convinced the other two were girls I finally say she and I mean she. The boys would have a baby sister and we called them in and they jumped up and down and shared in the joy with us.


And then it was time to call my mother.  The woman with an only daughter, but somehow with four grandsons would also get her girl.  After calling four times I gave up and called Monica and we squealed like crazy and I just kept saying I can’t believe it while Rolston beamed in the background imagining his new life with a daughter.


One final try to my parents and my mother was shushing me as she answered that they were in a restaurant as I loudly exclaimed “it’s a girl” and she said oh wait what a girl and then told my father it was a girl and then they no longer cared that they were in a restaurant.  My father exclaimed…we are going to have a granddaughter. Later they brought them a special dessert that said “Congrats on your granddaughter”. My mother had begun shopping in her head before dessert even arrived I am sure.


As I continued to let the news wash over me and embrace my new reality I was so grateful and so happy. That isn’t exactly news but I really felt it in those moments.  Believing that dreams come true is hard once you learn that most fairytales are not real.  After waiting a while for this baby I just wanted health the gender question was moot.  But then suddenly it wasn’t and all the things I did not let myself consider came flooding through.


All the pink and frilly princessy princess clothes.  The things I always wanted but could not have.  Oh and the nursery.  The gorgeous pink nursery filled with tiaras and tutus.  It was suddenly a dream come true the things I would get to do and to experience that I never imagined would be possible.


I thoroughly enjoyed decorating the boys nurseries.  A jungle theme for Brenton that suit him perfectly with happy primary colors and woodlands theme for Emerson with the wise old owl watching over him and the sunburst rug that he still has today. But there was something about this one being the last one and because it is for her.

Now at 20 weeks I am halfway there and it will not be much longer until we get to meet her. Constantly I find myself wondering about her. She seems fiesty. Maybe she is like me already. But she will always be uniquely her even if on occasion I do glimpse myself in her.


I have always found myself daydreaming during my pregnancies about what the baby will be like.  I am often wrong and sometimes right.  Mostly I like to think about the future and how happy they will be.  I imagine my daughter playing in the mud wearing her tiara and tutu.  I imagine her rolling her eyes at me if I share a quick story in her preteen years.  I imagine her needing me and trying not to, but me always waiting just in case she wants to talk. I imagine her on her wedding day and when she has her first child.  I imagine her looking at me like I look at my mother now, as a friend and a mother.


Then I think about all the times I won’t be able to be there for her and just hoping that I do right by her.  That I show her how to be strong and self-sufficient.  To be brave and unapologetic and really to be whatever she wants to be on her own terms. I hope for her what I hope for all my kids, that they find their way and that when they need me, I am here.


My dear Harper Elizabeth, I haven’t yet met you, but already I love you deeply.  My have you have all the love and joy and excitement in your life that I have had and more, so much more.  May you know how much happiness you have already brought me even in the weeks before the big moment when I heard the words I will always remember, it’s a girl.

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