December 14.
December 14 arrived… and with it, a quiet sense of victory.
Friday the 13th had passed. Laugh out loud… wink, wink. But the real story? It was just beginning.
Labor continued… hour after hour… stretching into what felt like an eternity. It was now Saturday, and I was still holding onto one promise I had made to myself from the very beginning — to bring my baby into this world drug-free, unless there was a true emergency.
The nurses… oh, they were angels.
Gentle. Attentive. Constantly checking on me. Encouraging me in moments when I wasn’t sure I had anything left to give.
But I’ll be honest… I reached a point where I thought my head might actually explode. The pain had settled deep into every part of me. I couldn’t understand why my baby wasn’t here yet. I was exhausted. Empty. Running purely on determination.
They wouldn’t let me eat.
They wouldn’t let me drink.
Because what if there was a need for surgery?
And I remember thinking… this is wild!
At one point, I even begged for something — anything — just a Tylenol.
But it was too late.
Because suddenly…
Everything changed.
“The baby is in the birth canal.”
Those words.
After 40+ weeks… after months of talking to this little life growing inside me… after all the quiet conversations, the hopes, the prayers… this was it.
I thought back to July — to the fear that gripped my heart as a first-time mom.
The worry that something might not be right.
The courage it took to ask for that special sonogram… even when I was told no.
And then… the compassion of a doctor who saw not just a patient, but a worried mother.
And because of that moment, I had seen my baby — ten fingers, ten toes… everything exactly where it should be.
I didn’t want to know if it was a boy or a girl back then.
I just wanted to know… my baby was okay.
And now here we were.
The final hours.
The final moments.
Finally… I was told to push.
And push I did.
With everything in me.
Through the screams.
Through the tears.
Through a strength I didn’t even know I had.
They told me I wouldn’t remember the pain. They told me I wouldn’t remember the moment.
But let me tell you…
I remember.
I remember the feeling.
I remember the moment my baby entered the world.
I remember the overwhelming rush — the release, the disbelief, the miracle of it all.
And then…
Those words I will never forget:
“It’s a girl.”
A girl.
My baby-girl.
A wave of emotion rushed over me so powerful it’s impossible to fully put into words. Relief. Joy. Awe. Love — instant and overflowing.
They took her for a few moments to make sure everything was perfect.
And I waited… as a brand-new mom… already feeling a love I had never known before.
Because everything had changed.
I had changed.
I had given life.
Even the moments that followed — the raw, real, beautifully human parts of childbirth — became part of the story I would carry forever. I was curious… in awe of what my body had just done. The very place that had nurtured and sustained my baby for all those months… now revealed in a way that was almost sacred.
It wasn’t strange to me.
It was amazing.
A full-circle moment.
An ending… and a beginning… all at once.
And just like that…
My baby girl was here.
I was a mom.
A first-time mom.
A very, very, very blessed mom.
And December 14…
became the day love took its very first breath.
Cherishing memories with ….
Life in Words 