Our Firstborn

Last week we celebrated our oldest daughter's birthday.  She was our first born and I can still vividly remember the day she was born.  She was three weeks late and my labor started late on a Saturday afternoon.  I was so excited my labor had started, I had begun to think she liked it a little too much in the womb and didn't want to come out. Finally, around 5:00 a.m. Sunday morning we went to the hospital.  This part is really funny, I was doing transition breathing on the way to the hospital thinking when I get there they will rush me immediately to delivery.  First child.....who knew, I sure didn't.  Got to the hospital and I was dilated to a one. Transition breathing is how you breath right before you start feeling the urge to push. Boy, did I have a way to go.  She arrived Sunday night at almost 10:00 p.m.

She really was beautiful.  Lots of dark curly hair, long fingers, cute little feet and she truly had rose bud lips, seriously!  I couldn't believe my husband and I had produced such a beautiful child. :)  By the time I got  to my room in was midnight, all the family and my husband had left and I was so excited I couldn't go to sleep.  I know, sounds crazy after that long labor but I was excited.  I remember lying in bed and watching lightning off to the south and I finally drifted off to sleep. 

Now fast forward thirty plus years.  She is a beautiful woman, not pretentious, loves simplicity, very giving, works very hard at everything she does, and  has a very caring heart for humanity and she is a hilarious impersonator.  She keeps family gatherings very lively.

Of our four children, she received the brunt of our selfishness, self centeredness and impatience.  She started the process of developing a great number of virtues in me and her dad.  She started the process of self-sacrifice, unconditional love (it took me a long time to learn this one) devotion and the art of education." Children uphold to parents, as if in mirrors, their own virtues and defects, they force them to reconsider their lives,to soften their criticisms and teach them how difficult it is to rule a human being. Through a first born child who ever suspects that a lighthearted maid will be changed into a mother who willingly makes supreme sacrifices with cheerful patience.  Becoming a family turns the selfish into servants, misers into heroes, coarse men into considerate fathers and tender mothers into courageous fighters." (contained in an Intimate Life)

To our first born, thank you for your love.