Emily

Dear Emily,
Happy 6th Birthday! You have grown so much this year and I am so proud of how well you are doing in kindergarten. You tell me every day how much you love school. Every morning when I drop you off and watch you skip across the crosswalk, I am so thankful for this little "hurricane" God blessed us with. That's what we used to call you, our little "hurricane". Your pediatrician said you "entered the world in dramatic fashion". I will never forget the morning you were born, it was the scariest moment of my entire life and I know that I will never be that scared again as long as I live. Your daddy says the same thing. Some day when you are old enough to understand, I will tell you just how close we came to losing you. How I was able to read the expression on every nurse's face, I will never forget the fear in their eyes when they saw what was happening to me. How I asked the nurse if this was normal and she said in a quiet voice "No, this is not normal". I will never forget the look on the nurse's face when she tried to find your heartbeat and it took a little bit to find it, but that little bit seemed like an eternity. How there was no time for phone calls, prayers, epidurals. How fast they raced me down the hall and I kept crying and saying how scared I was. How when I woke from surgery, I could barely talk and I managed to croak out your name "Ehhhhmaaaaly?" with a question at the end. How I can remember your daddy saying "She's ok, she's really ok, they are just keeping her in the nursery for awhile". How the first time I held you I could not believe it was possible for a newborn to have that much hair and how I could have given birth to this beautiful baby that looked like an Indian. How you threw up on me and I had no idea it would be the first of about 5000 times you would do so in the first year of your life. How I managed to hold my tears back until later when I was given a lunch tray and the buttery roll tasted so good and the tears began to flow and I could not stop crying with a mouth full of bread b/c I had been so scared of losing you. How I cannot stop crying now b/c I cannot imagine how empty my life would be without this hurricane that blew into my life.
God Bless You Emily. You are very loved.
Love,
Mommy;