Mama Speaks

Shortly after Ayla was born, people began making a point of telling me, "Oh, she looks just like Brandon."   (She didn't.  She actually looked Asian the day she was born.) "Oh, she has Brandon's _____ (nose, smile, chin, eyebrows, earlobes)!" I have to admit, this annoyed the crap out of me.  It still does sometimes, actually.  I usually just agree and say, "Hey, I was there, too!" or "At least she has my stunning personality." I gave birth to a 8 lb. 10 oz. baby girl.  I am a 5 foot tall woman.  I felt like I deserved a little credit.  It almost felt to me like I spent 9 months cooking my little sweet pea, then I got to have my body forever changed giving birth to her.  My tailbone still hurts, for Pete's sake. Of course, my family and some friends say they see the resemblance between her and I.  When I look at baby photos from my siblings and I, I see us in her.  When I look at Brandon's baby pictures, I see him as well....

Until you have a child, you never realize just how much revolves around one tiny person.  In fact, even during pregnancy, your life is claimed by something outside of yourself (well, inside technically, but outside of your life experience to that point).   When I was pregnant, everything revolved around my belly.  How big it was, how high or low, did I mention how big?  Everyone was so fixated on that one thing, and I have to admit, I was too.  I remember longing for my "bump" to appear so I could look pregnant instead of just chubby.  Before I knew it, around month 5, I was having tremendous pains that had me convinced something was terribly wrong with Ayla.   That pain would be called round ligament pain as my body was growing quite literally by the second.  I remember at the end of one weekend noticing how big I had gotten just since that Friday. Every day, it seemed, someone was asking me about how far along I was, how long was left, and...