I believe one of the true tests of love in a family is willingness to give up oneself for the other. Does that sound too simplistic? Maybe it is. Maybe it’s just a definition I’ve boiled down from experience. Or maybe I learned it from all the sitcoms I watched as a child. Who knows? The point is, that at any given time, you can take a family’s temperature so to speak when the important stuff happens.

My sister-in-law Kelly has been pregnant for what seems like forever with my baby niece or nephew. Her official due date was July 29th. (I try not to stop and think that my baby brother’s going to be a daddy. I mean, he’s ten years younger than me! I changed his diapers!)

My birthday is August 4th. And now - oh yeah - Alyssa’s birthday is August 4th. One more August 4th birthday and I’m going to start celebrating my half-birthday and leave August for the babies. Early in Kelly’s pregnancy I asked her very nicely (I thought) if she’d do everything she could to avoid my birthday. She rolled her eyes and said she’d work on it.

Yesterday at 1:30pm I received a phone call from David, telling me that Kelly went in for her OB appointment and had high blood pressure. They sent her down to the maternity floor, one thing led to another, and now they were going to induce. Wow! Thus started BabyWatch 2008.

By 5pm we hadn’t had an update and I was about ready to hike it to the hospital to see what was going on. (Rush hour traffic and the fact that the hospital is about 40 minutes away from my house cooled those jets.) A little later we heard that David and Kel were in “waiting” mode, so the hounds were released. An hour after that call, myself, Stephen, Alyssa, Ryan, my brother-in-law Scott, my sister Kimberly, Scott’s son Chase, my mother and father, and Kelly’s grandma and aunt were all crammed into one room, ostensibly “visiting.” The nurses put up with that for about an hour before sending the whole lot of us home. The doctor had assured Kelly that she wouldn’t be delivering until mid-morning at the soonest, so we all grudgingly took our leave.

But not before making David swear that he’d call us at the first sign of any action - no matter what the time!

Typically, my phone rang at 4:30am. “The baby’s coming,” Dave told me. “They think it will be an hour or so.” I ran through the house, changing clothes as I went. Stephen was furious, because I take Ambien to sleep and he knew I was still hopped up on it. Luckily for me, Stephen is also a sound sleeper who doesn’t rouse easily, so it was simple to placate him as I ran out the door.

At 5:05am I was sitting in the waiting room. At 5:15am my baby brother walked in and announced it was a GIRL! And of course I shouted and threw my arms around him and jumped up like a dork. A niece! I have a niece! And of course, she’s the most beautiful niece anyone has ever had.

Maddy was born at 5:12am, and was 7lbs even, 19″ long. She looks exactly like her mother.

By 5:30am all the new grandparents, new aunts and new uncles were standing in the new mom’s labor room with the proud new papa. We were all a little bleary-eyed but nothing was going to stop us from passing that beautiful little football around and cooing at her every blink, sneeze, cry and (imagined) smile.

I drove home promising myself I’d hug my own babies a little tighter today and tell them what little miracles they are, too. Reminders like these are priceless.

Happy happy,
michelle