December 28, 1999

At around 4:00pm on this day six years ago, I was eating a helluva good ham sandwich. I followed it with apple pie and coffee, the single best piece of apple pie and the single best cup of coffee I'd ever tasted.

I know now why they tasted so good, but at the time I simply marvelled at the quality of the hospital food.

My younger daughter, Little Miss, was born at 3:28pm that afternoon. I'd had nothing to eat since the night before. We were at the hospital at seven in the morning, and at that time, food was the last thing on my mind.

Flashes of memory fill in some of the spaces of that day: sitting in the rocking chair, big and tired, dressed in a hospital gown and waiting for the nurses; my husband across the room in the only other chair, asking if I'd like the television on. Sitting up later on the hospital bed, hooked up to an IV and a maternal/fetal monitor, marvelling that I was having contractions just three minutes apart that I could barely feel. Playing cards with my husband and watching "The Price Is Right." By the time TPIR was over and the Young and the Restless had begun, I could feel those contractions. My water never broke on its own, but once the doctor took care of it, the pain came in waves and rushes. It had been twelve and a half years since the last time I'd given birth, and I didn't have a clear memory of what to do.

It was hard. Harder than I thought it would be. I opted for pain killers, but only in intrathecal form, rather than the more popular epidural. It wore off as I hit transition, dragging me into brain stretching pain in a sudden, sharp slash.

"You're not pushing this baby out through your feet, honey!"

The nurse, trying to help me remember just how this was done, reminding me not to push with my heels. She laughed - sympathetic, not cruel - when I asked if she couldn't just reach in and pull the baby out for me.

Lots of noise and rushing and activity and a marvelous, nearly audible whoosh - and then blessed relief and the sound of my baby's full and angry cry.

I learned she was a girl through my husband's tears. I saw her, touched her, gasped for breath with her, and shook as the nurses gently took her to be weighed and washed.

And I was hungry. It was a lusty hunger, a craving for food I'd never felt before. My husband said something to a nurse who said something to someone else, who came back with the snack for me.

I still wonder if I'll ever taste a better cup of coffee.

They put the baby in my arms and she stared at me. I stared back. It was a moment I'd waited years for, breathtaking in its sweetness. Her eyes, the striking midnight blue so many newborns share, took me in with a knowing calmness.

She's in her bed now, safely wrapped in red flannel jammies and snuggled up with three teddy bears and a new birthday doll. She has long blonde hair and spring sky eyes, my little kindergarten daughter who pronounces her age "six" with a distinct and charming lisp.

It's another breathtaking moment these years later than the first, and today's cup of coffee carries the bittersweet aftertaste of the passage of time.