Happy Birthday

 After 30 hours of hard labor with my epidural only lasting a few hours in the middle of it, my baby still wasn't coming out. At this point I was beyond exhausted. My little bug was stubborn. sometime in the morning after said epidural stopped working and hours more of indescribable pain had me at the end of my threshold, I was wheeled into surgery. I could feel too much of what was happening and began to panic so I was put under for the rest of the cesarean. I woke to the distant sound of a baby crying mingled with busy voices and feet. I couldn't see anything yet, but Daryll's trembling voice broke through the fog, "Honey, we have a little girl!" Still confused and in pain, I knew one truth and I said it to a brightening room, "I have a daughter..." and the tears came. Like the Grinch, my heart grew three sizes that day. For two years, every ounce of pain I have ever felt in my life is the size of an ant compared to my love for her. Happy Birthday, my most sacred gift. Mommy loves you more than the sun and the moon and all the stars.