You live and you learn...

It's been a while since I've actually sat down to capture my thoughts...

So, I spent all of last week in and out of doctors offices and even had a grand stay at the hotel de Memorial Hermann, discovering that I had kidney stones, It was most unpleasant, but I survived...

During my stay there, it brought back several memories of when I gave birth to my daughter back in 2007. The room was identical to the one I stayed in before, when I first met her. Ironically enough I was in a similar amount of pain as well. As I laid there unable to move, I started to reminisce on all of the moments that I experienced almost three years ago. The memories I have are often bittersweet. My life was so different back then, and now I am trying to build new memories. Although, I will never forget the night that I gave birth to my daughter...

It all started when I busy shopping with my Mom and Grandmother. I eventually realized that I was in labor after I sat down to watch a movie towards the end of the day. I called my doctor thinking it was just a pinched nerve and he told me to get to the emergency room as soon as possible. I wasn't about to let anything get in the way of my retail therapy, until that point. I was in Sugar Land at the time and I had to some how not give birth in the back of a Lexus while I was in route to the hospital in Katy thirty miles away. Of course, this all happened during rush hour traffic and she wasn't due for another two weeks. While my contractions were at their highest peak, I was making countless phone calls and sending texts to everyone I knew to let them know that Audrey Grace was on her way, all the while, my dad just so happened to be traveling on his way back to Houston from NYC. He was returning to at least a dozen voicemails. I called her "soon to be dad" to let him know and he causally told me he would meet me at the hospital, with no anxiousness under his breath, and I just told him that I'd better see him there. We somehow made it to the emergency room, but just barely! I walked in at six and a half centimeters dilated, and five hours later I had given birth to the most beautiful little angel in the world, my daughter Audrey Grace. Believe me, it sounds easier said than done! She needed to be put in oxygen for another four hours; therefore I was only able to catch a quick glimpse of her face before they put her in the nursery...

That night I sat there like I did this past week just hoping that everything was going to be okay. Going back deep into my thoughts, I vividly remember I had just fallen asleep after four hours of anxiousness and crying and desperately wanting to hold my daughter for the first time when the nurse came in to ask me if I wanted to meet my daughter. I immediately perked up and was so ready to hold my little bundle of joy. At that point her dad had already gone home to go to bed. He felt like he just couldn't stay up or even sleep on the couch they had prepared for him after such a long night of not giving birth, so I got to enjoy this "once in a life time" moment all by myself. I will never forget it. She was absolutely beautiful and perfect in every way, as any mother would say. I stared at her all night and into the early morning. I could feel the puffiness and redness of my eyes, but I had quickly gone from being sad to completely overjoyed the minute I got to hold her. I didn't care at that point; I was so in love...

After a while, I decided to call her dad to try and explain to him what it was that he was missing. It was impossible to describe this feeling that I felt, and I was trying to understand why he had already gone home before even meeting his one and only daughter. Meanwhile my mind veered off and just kept reverting back to my sweetheart in hand...

Looking back, there was a part of me that truly felt like it was just the two of us. Physically it was, and I was starting to think the same emotionally. There was a bond she and I developed nine months earlier and when we touched each others hands, it was a bond made forever. That was something I am not sure he would have ever been able to feel, let alone understand...

The next morning I started to have visitors come in to meet her. We were showered with flowers and balloons, cards and gifts. We even received a small plant that was so tiny, so that we could watch it grow as she grew. I still have the same plant in my kitchen and it has grown rapidly paralleled to her. I felt so blessed to have so many people surrounding us and being a part of a moment I knew I would never forget. A little while later her father arrived. The party started to diminish so that he could have "his time" with her. I was torn between thoughts of "what took you so long" and "this is such an amazing moment". I decided to push the negative thoughts out and enjoy the scene of Audrey meeting her dad for the very first time. I cried, it was so beautiful, yet his eyes didn't tear up once...

So as I watch this replay over and over in my mind, I still keep discovering that there were so many missing pieces. I am not sure it will ever make sense to me. That day I learned so much, but I didn't know until now what that was, and so I am back in the room where I was last week just looking around and feeling the moment of holding my daughter for the very first time and hoping that that will pull me through the rest of my days...

By: MKV