Five years and nine months ago, two pink lines told us you were coming.
A few weeks later, we saw your tiny heart flickering on the screen and heard the whump-whump-whump and counted its measured beats.
Time passed, and before we knew it the kicks and elbows told us you were coming. (Your daddy once laid his head on my tummy to talk to you, and you kicked him in the ear. We laughed. You have always been full of personality.) One day, we walked into the same room where we'd seen your heart for the very first time, and the words, "It's a girl," forever changed the way we thought of you. That day, you weren't just our baby anymore. You were our daughter.
You grew, and I grew, and every afternoon your hiccups told me you were coming. Your elbows and kicks became stronger, and you were never, ever still. It's funny how much we can know of a child by the way she is before she is born. You are very much like that today, five years later, never, ever still, at least not for long.
And then, the morning came for you to be born, and the peaks and valleys on the monitor told us you would have come that day even if surgery hadn't already been scheduled.
But it was, and in the operating room the doctor came over and looked at me with kind eyes. She asked if I was ready, and I said I was, but it wasn't until your daddy was by my side that I felt completely calm. And then it started. The doctor cried, "She's here!", but you weren't quite. You kicked free of her hands and stayed with me for a few moments more. Then there was a little more tugging, a little more pulling, and suddenly, the cries that filled the operating room told us you were here.
Five years later, the evidence of you is everywhere. It is in the drawings plastered onto our fridge and the crayons spread across the table. It is in the missing basil leaves from our herb garden, and the bouquets of clover flowers and dandelions drying on the patio table. It is in the bright socks in my laundry basket, not quite as impossibly small as they used to be, but still as impossible to match. It is in the stacks of well-worn Mercer Mayer books and in the glittery nail polish that lines my bathroom counter. It is in the My Little Pony stickers I found stuck to the bottom of my sandals and the bag of pink Goldfish crackers your daddy bought the last time we were at Target. It is in our evolving vocabulary, where speech impediments have become words, like "anyfing" and "tee-ay-toes". It is in "Let It Go" and "Roar" and "Stop the Bats" and "Don't Stop Believin'". It is our dvr queue that is populated by Olivia and Bubble Guppies and Doc McStuffins and Max and Ruby. It is in Giraffia and Olivia and your nightlight perched next to your pillow, because you can't sleep without all three. It is in the paci I put in my coat pocket three years ago that I can't quite make myself throw out when I find it anew every fall.
And even if all these things went away, you know what, Lou? It wouldn't matter at all. The evidence of you is the Elaina-sized imprint on our hearts.
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