But wait! There's more!

I would be remiss if I didn't include an introduction of our younger daughter, Genevieve Jean.

Though no less a surprise than her sister, my pregnancy with Genevieve and her subsequent birth was the big box of curve balls and out of control amusement park rides that Lydia's was not.

And even though they are only separated by five and a half years, by the time Genevieve came along, you would have thought that I was 63 and trying to make my way into the Guinness Book of World Records, for all of times that the terms "high-risk pregnancy" and "advanced maternal age" were thrown around. People please, I was 36.

And even today, I can't help but think that throughout the pregnancy, I remained in a protective bubble of ignorance. Because things could have been so much worse. That isn't to say I was without my moments of self-doubt. I remember a phone conversation with my friend Cindy, who was pregnant herself. My voice gone to whisper for being on the verge of tears, I said to her, "I'm having trouble imagining this whole thing turning out well."

But Genevieve grew and developed despite the advanced maternal age, gestational diabetes, and hypertension. And the edema, oh my God the edema!

32 weeks we made it until the whole operation started circling the drain. My regular OB, who I secretly love, had wisely handed my care over to a perinatology group due to the fact that he was headed out of town for a few days. Oh, and the results of my 24-hour urine were apparently frightenening. So I was called in for a stat ultrasound, where there was determined to be not enough amniotic fluid left in me to fill a Dixie cup.

I was administered the first of 2 doses of betamethasone for Genevieve's lungs, and sent home on strict bed rest. Grandma Dude brought me in on Sunday for the 2nd dose. Grandpa and daddy put in our vegetable garden, and I watched from the couch. On Monday, Lydia went home with Grandpa & Grandma Dude. Daddy and I reported back to the hospital for another scan. Again it was determined that the amniotic fluid was disappearing. I was admitted to the hospital, and spent the next 3 days waiting, talking to the doctors, and being scanned a couple times a day to make sure that Genevieve was ok. By Thursday, my team of specialists determined that enough was enough. My water was broken, pitocin started and the epidural was administered. (On a side note, let me mention that I've always felt that the epidural that I was given during my labor with Lydia was, how do you say, shitty. So since then, I had always dreamed of having one of those deliveries where you don't know that you're having a contraction unless you're looking at the monitor.) I was ecstatic - I couldn't feel anything from the abdomen on down! I couldn't even roll over by myself. It was so awesome.

I have to pause here, to give props to my good friend Amy. Amy would attend births as a job if she could, she loves them that much. Well wait, she's a NICU nurse, so I guess she kind of does. Anyway, Amy was bound and determined to remain at my side for the blessed event. I think she put in close to an 8-hour shift sitting in a chair next to me. She has 3 kids of her own, so obligations to her own life took her from my bedside at about 2:30 pm that day. She got up from her chair, saying "Well, if I don't leave now, I'll never get Molly to her dance pictures on time." And with that she was gone, with a promise to return shortly. Then at about 2:31, the action started. I was checked, determined to be ready to deliver, and whisked to the OR (in case they had to, you know, go in after her.) I had just a second while the hospital staff prepared everything, to call Amy and let her know it was GO TIME. It's a good thing she was barely out of the parking garage of the hospital, otherwise we might not have been able to hear her thunderous cursing and gnashing of teeth as she drove away to fetch her daughter. I will be forever grateful for Amy. She's one of a kind.

So back to the matter at hand....the actual birth was kind of a non-event. There was a handsome doctor who referred to himself as the clean-up hitter, referring to the fact that he was the final member of the large perinatology practice to participate in my care. There was no pain, no strenuous pushing. You couldn't really even call it labor.

Genevieve Jean was born at 3:35 pm on Thursday, May 25, 2006. She weighed 5 lbs, measured 17 inches long and had trouble breathing on her own. She was attended to by a neonatology team, and once stabilized, was taken to the NICU where she would spend the next several weeks.

Nothing can prepare you for life in the NICU. From the first moment I walked in her room, and the tsunami-sized wave of "oh my God, oh my God this is ALL my fault" washed over me, it was unlike anything you've ever imagined. But she grew, she learned to breathe on her own, she learned to eat, and before I knew it, I was taking a picture of Shell walking out of the unit with our tiny baby in her carrier, so light in those days you honestly couldn't tell the difference between when it was empty and when she was in it. We were overwelmed with gratefulness to be going home. The entire time that she was there was a little slice of torture for me, because everytime I was with her, I felt like I should be with Lydia, and everytime I spent time with Lydia at home, I was overcome with guilt about not being at Genevieve's bedside.

Since then, this frail little baby who once tried to use the hand port of her Isolette as an escape hatch, has brought us immense joy. She is completely different from anyone I know. Or better said, she is completely different from me. Well, except for her love of fried chicken. She is cheerful, kind, feisty, quiet, happy and completely, breathtakingly beautiful. She is passionate about many things, including her toothbrush, her dog, this girl -so much so that I have heard her call out for her plaintively in the middle of the night while she sleeps.

She will be 2 in a couple of weeks, and I can't wait for the rest of the story to unfold.