March | 2016 | The View From Here

My favorite birthday isn’t my own. It’s my daughter’s. That was the day she came into my arms, a red, rooting, stretching, bleating bundle of joy. Her birthday will always be MY best day. I thought I was ready for this: I had written a novel. I’d earned a master’s degree. I had a successful teaching career. But nothing–NOTHING–could compare to THIS:

0001 my first 30 seconds as a mom

I birthed that baby the way I did everything else–fast, cluelessly and over-achieving. I worked a full day at school, came home and detailed the car by hand, had a multi-course frozen entree (yes, frozen, I’m not SuperWoman) of sole meuniere, duchess potatoes, chocolate cake (why do I remember this?). This was the “nesting impulse” they warned my about in childbirth class, but I didn’t realize that until the undigested dinner erupted in every direction a few hours later (sorry about that visual). No anesthetics (yes, I was that stupid). 30 seconds of pushing. (Because, no anesthetics, remember?) and BOOM. A lovely round-headed daughter whose birth weight was the same as my own.

She rearranged my heart. She became my living doll…

eliz and mommy 6-1984