Could It Be 15 Years AlreadY?

Today is my eldest daughter’s fifteenth birthday. Time flies! I remember before she was born I had the strangest feeling I was having a boy. You know how we Moms hone in on that intuition at the end of a pregnancy and mine was beeping boy.

At that time in the world of babies, you didn’t have a lot of sonograms and knowing the baby’s sex wasn’t the norm. Having already had a son, I thought it would be nice they’d have each other. Yet, having no sisters of my own, I longed for a girl.

When she was born, the doctor informed us she was male and my husband and I hugged. I thought to myself the baby’s healthy, yes, I’m outnumbered but it will be just fine. I was thankful.

The morning before my Mom had come over and we were discussing the baby’s sex. She thought for sure she’d have a granddaughter. She brought over a gold baby bracelet that was mine and she said, “Wouldn’t it be nice if we had someone to wear this?” I expressed my thoughts and she smiled, “We’ll see!”

The delivery nurse brought our newborn over to the warming table just as I was warming up to the idea of two sons.

“Oh, Mom and Dad!” ,she shrieked, “I’m so sorry-we’ve made a mistake, it’s not a boy, it’s a girl!” I could not believe my ears; it was so surreal. My husband, the toughie Crime Scene Investigator, just started crying and said he was so happy for me. I couldn’t speak. She was the first granddaughter on both sides of our families.

“I guess we didn’t check thoroughly enough”, the delivery nurse chuckled as she gave me the baby, a replica of her Dad. I was mesmerized by her!

My husband said he was going out into the hall to make the phone calls. “I’ll call your Mom first”, he said.

I told him not to tell her what we had. He was puzzled.

“Just say to her, ‘Tara says bring the bracelet’”. When he came back he said he did exactly what I had asked and you could hear her yelling all through the hospital hallway!