All while I was growing up my daddy used to tease mama that she couldn’t wait just eleven days so I could be born on his birthday.  So when people found out I was due in October they kept asking if I wanted her on my birthday.  “NO!” I would emphatically declare and I’m sure some people thought I did not want to share my birthday.  I DID want to share a birthday … my late father’s.  I literally could not believe I got pregnant and then I could not believe I was due in October.  That’s why her middle name is Grace, because it is by the grace of God that she is here.  I like something the Spanish actress Penelope Cruz once said:

“All those cliches, those things you hear about having a baby and motherhood – all of them are true.  And all of them are the most beautiful things you will ever experience.”

My beautiful baby carries my late mother’s name and has my late father’s birthday.  And she was mine at last.