Happy Birthday to my French-American, Bajan-accented girl

Lily turned four years old today!  After a party a couple of weekends ago with her classmates,she will celebrate today at school with mini-ice cream cones, chocolate and vanilla for all the kids at camp.  Camp for Lily is basically school without the uniform and lots of fun projects and some older girls to copy and look up to.  She wore a special t-shirt with ballet shoes on it and took a birthday hat and mask and noisemaker to get everyone all riled up!

July 27th, 2006, I went to the hospital with Didier to have an ultrasound.  Because I was over 35 years old and 40 weeks pregnant, I was to go to the hospital twice a week to make sure that all was safe and sound with the baby.  It was a crazy summer in New York City that year.  We were in the midst of a massive heatwave with temperatures over 100 degrees for 5 days in a row.  To get to Beth Israel Hospital from our apartment was such a complicated trip, that we had timed a subway and bus ride faster than a cab! 

That morning it was so incredibly hot and I was so huge I just couldn't eat a thing.  I took a glass of water and we left the apartment to make our way to our appointment.  Once there, after a stress test and a look at the active little monster on the screen, the doctor came in to ask me if I had noticed anything out of the ordinary.  Any 'contractions.  Any water leakage.  Nothing came to mind.  I just felt huge and nervous and incredibly hot.  "Well", she said, "we are going to admit you and start you on a drip and I think we are going to induce this baby.  Your fluid is low and I think she is ready to come on out."

Say what?

From that moment I was not permitted to eat or drink and was told I was more than likely looking at a long day...and night ahead of me.  I was taken to another floor to a birthing room where Didier was told to kiss me goodbye and go and get my things.  Which, of course, were long packed and ready to go waiting at the bedroom door.  He left me looking scared to bits, I am sure, and ran off to take care of the remaining details.  The folks at the hospital got started on me.  With a drip of pitossin started, it looked like Didier might not make it back.  I dilated fairly quickly and handled the pain pretty well for about 7 hours and then...not so much.  The epidural slowed it all down to a halt and we watched movies and napped and hung about waiting for a sign from the babe that we were getting ready for some action.

At 5:01 on the morning of the 28th, Lily Frances Grace made her way into the world.  All bright eyes and screams.  Didier says she flew out like a fish and even though he had promised not to look, the first mention of the hair and he was in there like someone's obstetrician.  I loved her immediately.  Like I had never loved another human being up until that moment.  The love a mother has for her child is different that being loved by a parent, by a lover, by a sibling, or by a friend.  I looked into her beautiful brown eyes and saw life, the lotus, God, a promise.  I was nearly speechless and whispered only, "Oh my God.  Oh my God."

And now my beautiful lotus talks my head off and calls me in the middle of the night and whines when she is tired.  But she also travels with me on this journey, following and guiding, following and guiding.  My little French, American, Bajan Chatty Cathy is 4 years old today.

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