It was the day before you were to be born. She walked into the largest of the baby suites - the one they had set me up in because I was to be there so long, the one big enough for your sisters to bring sleeping bags and stay with me at night, the one you would be born in - and she looked at my iv.
It needs changing again. There's no place left to put it but your neck or foot.
I probably cried. I was tired. I could not wait for you to get here. Could this pregnancy get much worse? It all began the day I passed out in the dressing room of Limited Too and your Uncle Markie scooped me up and carried me to the waiting ambulance.
And now Bluebird can't go to the mall with Delia without anxiety that something will happen. A little PTSD, Shelby?
When a tear was found in my gallbladder and there was nothing they could do but wait for you to come. When every bite made me sick and I slept with a bowl by my bed just in case I couldn't make the bathroom. When your big sister was so afraid she slept on a pallet right at my side of the bed.
The nurse held off on the iv change and less than 24 hours later they made me so comfortable I never felt a moment's pain and you brought more than just a new baby girl into our lives.
You brought joy and happiness matched only by the two before you and you were mothered by three and they were bigger mama lions than I was.
To know you is to love you.
You are still the silly little girl full of excitement that climbed the doors like coconut trees. That feated up when you were hot and touched my cheek when you told stories.
It takes you forever to get ready and you've got me obsessed with Downton Abbey.
They aren't really cancelling it, right? Maybe it's just a guise to get you to watch the series finale and they are secretly bringing Matthew back. A little like the Dallas/Pam/Bobby shower scene. We can hope.
And you love you some TV and movies.
And you cried buckets of tears over Pilgrim and then took the stage and blew me away.
I am so very terribly not humble at all proud of you.
I'd ask you to just slow down a little but that's one of the impossible mysteries of life - how swiftly time grows up your babies.
Stay here in Merica, okay? And you love you some Survivor.
I love you my sweet sixteen sack of baby bones.
