Three short weeks after the baby shower, my water broke unexpectedly in the middle of the night, launching me into a grueling fourteen-hour labor process at Saint Luke Memorial Hospital. The labor was an agonizing cycle of physical pain, overwhelming fatigue, and intense anxiety, but everything vanished the second the delivery room filled with the sharp sound of a newborn crying.
The attending obstetrician carefully wiped down the tiny, warm infant and gently placed her right against my exhausted chest, wrapping a soft pink blanket around her wriggling body. “You have brought a breathtakingly healthy and perfectly formed baby girl into this world, Alison.”
I looked down into the baby’s bright dark eyes, tenderly counting each tiny finger on her hands and each miniature toe on her feet while my eyes welled up with emotional tears. “Your mother is going to completely lose her mind out of sheer joy the second she walks through that door to hold you,” I whispered softly against her forehead.
