An hour after I hit publish on last night's whining, self-pitying blog post, in a house not far from here, a little blonde woman started noticing "changes." At two am, she texted me to say she had gone in to get checked out. She was there about an hour before they decided that nothing was progressing, and she was sent home. I had been finding it difficult to fall asleep right when she wrote me, and getting all excited like that didn’t make sleeping any easier than that for quite a while.
By mid-morning, she was ready to go back and be a little more assertive about staying. Indeed she did. They kept her this time. But not everything goes as planned, and at noon they informed me that the Littlest Smith would be arriving by the side door. They promised a cesarean section by mid-afternoon. It took far longer to get going than we imagined, while sitting at home, trying to meter how many times we texted, asking for updates. I think they wheeled her back a full hour after we were told it would start. The radio silence that followed was agonizing.
Just as the worst anxious thoughts were starting to creep in and scare me, we finally got a quick word: we are out and okay. Then we got a beautiful photo of a little pink cherub. On the group text, my family was celebrating, but I had to ask in the only way I could think, "what is baby's name?" The answer told me that unless and until the Littlest Smith tells us otherwise, she will use she/her pronouns.
Without further ado, may I present the most beautiful new thing in our lives: Valerie.
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