One

Today, my baby girl is one year old.

 

A year and a day ago, I went to my weekly perinatologist appointment at the hospital. I had recently contracted Fifth Disease for the first time — after all three of my boys had it within the span of a month — and because I had never had it before, my pregnancy had to be monitored for signs of distress or anemia in the baby. I laid on the very uncomfortable table, watching the ultrasound technician roll her wand over my belly and enter measurements. As soon as she was done and had left to notify my doctor, I whisked out my iPhone, pulled up a website graph that measured the velocity of blood flow through a baby’s brain in utero, and began doing the math. I knew what was coming.

When the doctor came in, he pulled up the same website on his laptop. I showed him my phone. I knew the numbers had risen. Although the chance that my baby was actually in trouble was slim, it was real. I texted my friends: I’m not going to make lunch, I wrote. I’m going to have the baby. It wasn’t until the early evening the next day that I gave birth to my last child and my only daughter, just as a rainbow emerged from behind rainclouds outside the window opposite my hospital bed. Lucy was three weeks early and weighed 7 pounds, 15 ounces. She was perfect and perfectly healthy.

 

I had always wanted to have at least one son and one daughter. I wanted the experience of raising both, even though I realized that gender does not dictate personality or my relationship with my children. I especially understood that after having three sons, each of whom is completely different and individual and none of whom completely conform to gender expectations. When you have a sample size of three, you realize that children are, by and large, just children — there are much fewer “boy traits” and “girl traits” than I used to believe. That doesn’t mean I didn’t often feel like an alien in my own house or a stranger in a strange land, particularly when cleaning the bathroom (Moms of boys, can I get an amen?). Still, I had made peace with the universe, even though I felt I might always mourn the experience of having a daughter, because I was abundantly lucky to have my three crazy, fantastic boys.

 

 

People ask me all the time if and how Lucy is different than the boys were. She’s really not. Babies are, in fact, babies. My babies all had her suede skin, all rocked the same rolled thighs, all were my constant buddies for at least the first years of their lives. Of course, their personalities were and are a little unique. She’s opinionated like a few of them were, but she’ll stay in the gym childcare happily unlike my third son. She sleeps well, but not as well as my second son did. Probably the biggest difference I see in her is her well-honed pincer grip, which the boys didn’t really have. Unlike them, she seems to have developed her fine motor skills first. She isn’t walking like they were at this age, and she babbles, but she hasn’t said a real word yet like they had by now. She’s very aware of everyone around her and she’s a huge hambone and attention hog, probably the result of being the fourth baby and the target of all her brothers’ focus and affection. Lord help the poor souls who try to date her someday — they will have big shoes to fill!

 

 

Last year, when Lucy was only a few weeks old, I wrote a piece for the Huffington Post and said that having a daughter did not complete me. I stand by that. I was complete before Lucy came along. But. I cannot lie: having Lucy is like getting to open a present every single day. Maybe because she’s my last baby, maybe because she’s my first (and only) girl, but I have had a year full of joy with her. She sometimes has this smile that is serene and sure; other times, it crinkles her nose and eyes. She has an ebullient laugh. She has learned to wave in a crazy, jerky, uncontrolled display of excitement, and when she gives kisses, she tries to eat my face. Sometimes when I hold her, she just looks at me with full eyes, and she takes her little hand and just pats my chest softly. It’s such a loving gesture, I just want to hold her forever.

 

 

Of course, when her brothers are around, I have to fight to hold her. Lucy has changed my boys and, I am positive, changed the way they will interact and treat women. My too-cool-for-school ‘tween is not afraid to gurgle “I love yous” to her in front of his friends at flag football practice. My class clown 9 year old cracks me up constantly with his running dialogue of Lucy’s internal thoughts. My kindergartner begs me to bring Lucy to his class, where she is a celebrity. I sometimes visit his school and find Lucy’s name written in chalk all over the sidewalks. Lucy is beloved.

 

 

Lucy and I have already had one big, adventurous year together. She’s traveled to New York City and to San Francisco; she has napped in wineries in Napa and on the beach in Florida. She’s sat in the guest chair at Late Show with David Letterman, she’s been the star of the Katie Couric green room, and she’s tried to eat Arianna Huffington’s book, Fearless — in front of Arianna herself. I can’t wait to have more adventures with my little girl. She didn’t complete me; she did better. She changed me and my boys, big and small. She took the life and family I had and she enhanced it — everything is more fun, more joyful, and more beautiful with her in our world.

 

Happy birthday, baby girl. We’re so glad you’re here. I can’t wait for our next adventure.