Dearest Wee Bee of Mine,

I haven’t written in oh so long, Zoe.

Things haven’t been easy. Not with you- you always make every minute of every day easy. But life itself has been far too busy and hectic with a huge dash of health worries (again, not for you!) that are now finally starting to clear- now, finally, we can see the light at the other side- and it wasn’t in my heart to write.

But then I realized that this is exactly the time to write- exactly what I need. And so, a little trip back to the day my miracle was born.

“I am realistic. I expect miracles”- Wayne Dyer

Zoe, we were all waiting waiting waiting for you to arrive. Not just in the weeks leading up to your birth, but really, if I am being honest, for much much longer than that.

My side of our family had not had a baby born in such a long time, and I was terrified of giving birth. Not of anything afterwards, because I wanted you in my arms more than anything, but of giving birth itself. And not of the pain of giving birth- but rather, that it might not go the way I had it all neatly planned out in my head.

Life, my darling girl, does not really go according to plan. But it does give you miracles if you expect them.

I wanted as little intervention as possible. No induction, no epidural, no other medications, as few “extras” as possible. But if I’m being honest, my fear of giving birth was crowding out picturing all of that in my head, and of welcoming all of that into my heart. All I could consistently “see” in my mind was a baby whooshing out of me and then being placed on my chest.

And that, my girl, is what happened. We were induced, my contractions tired me out because they weren’t progressing at all so I had an epidural, I ended up with a fever so I had to have antibiotics for the first time in years, and we had an enormous medical team in the delivery room waiting to make sure you would be alright (since my fever was complicating everything).

But then? All of a sudden….

whoosh

And there you were.

Our lovely nurse asks if I can see what I had, and I whisper, “no.” And then daddy looks down at you and says the most beautiful words in the world, “it’s a girl!”

Zoe, sometimes our fear crowds out the good. But even in the midst of all of the fear that I had, I was still able to picture the most important miracle of all- the moment of your birth. You whooshed into the room, and into our lives, with all of the might and strength and light and love that we all needed- even more than I could ever have imagined.

Life brings what we anticipate, what we focus in on, what we expect. So expect miracles, Zoe. Let them whoosh into your life in the same way you joyfully rushed into ours.

(*Originally posted on And Bumble Makes Three on April 26th, 2013)