Tomorrow, the daughter who almost died on me twice as a newborn will turn a happy, healthy 4! We're far enough away from the drama of the NICU that I don't think about my daughter Teresa as an amazing miracle of grace everyday anymore. She's simply my kid. She is amazing to me when she remembers every song lyric to the entire musical of Frozen while wearing her shimmering Elsa costume dress. She's kind of annoying to me when she fastidiously demands to eat her Cheerios only from the already dirty red cereal bowl and violently eschews all of the other, more easily available, color choices.
Birthdays are good because they are a marker to remember where we came from and to reflect on where we are going in life.
My daughter Teresa had a rough start. It was desperately hard to be her Mama for her first month of life, even though I was well broken in since she was my 4th child. When I reread the blog posts about her life in the NICU today, I can only remember the incredible amount of love that surrounded us all at Children's National Hospital.
I'm so grateful for my Tess.
(For more background on my daughter's NICU journey, you can click on the NICU tab label to the right. To read an important reflection from a Doctor on how parents of sick babies are often unfairly bullied into a "medically necessary abortion" after an adverse prenatal diagnosis, please click on this link. It doesn't matter whether you are pro-choice, or pro-life, every parent who faces the sudden diagnosis of a sick child deserves respect, love, mercy and lots of prayer support.)
