Happy Birthday, Sarah: Part 1

Slow down!
Slow down this ride.
The clock ride.
It goes too fast.
Nineteen times it has come by to pick you up and carry you to the next year, Sarah.

I remember the day we discovered you had joined us on the clock ride. Ben was only eight months old and I believed the old wives' tale that it's hard to get pregnant while nursing. Besides, we wanted four children in ten years and wouldn't have minded them close together. I went to bed one night in mid-December, wide awake but exhausted from chasing your GI Joe crawler of a big brother. As I lay there rehearsing the day, I felt something. Like butterflies, except not in my stomach.

The feeling was too recent for me to have forgotten it--or even doubted it. Could it be? I nudged your dad (okay, I think I fully rolled him 180 degrees toward me) and said, "Honey! If this isn't a baby in my belly, I don't know what it is." He said, "Yeh, right. I think it's the broccoli." But a few more times you kicked and I thought, "I am at least 18 weeks along to feel this!"

I had a pregnancy test the next day and the nurse calculated my due date. "Congratulations. You're 22 weeks along." Wow. How could I have not known? Well, there was the typical absence of monthly clues (nursing did halt that for awhile!), my abs were getting stronger from the workouts (or so I thought), and I was staying slim from just being YOUNG and never getting a moment to sit down except for feeding the baby and answering nature calls.

We were stunned, elated, a bit panicked. Most moms get at least 34 weeks' notice. I had 18. I was still wearing size 10 (can you believe it?) jeans zipped up at five months along. When I found out I was pregnant, I felt like an abuser squishing you, but it was December 12th and we wanted to break the news on Christmas Eve to Dad's family and on Christmas Day to mine. What a bundle of kisses and hugs we got that year. The anticipated gift of another grandbaby was always better than anything wrapped in paper.

---------Stopping here to take you to dinner. Will continue later.