This is a dedication to my middle child, on the occasion of her birthday this last week. She has officially completed four years, and I’ve been thinking back to when we started this journey that is her.

I was advised that I should be happy with the one – I shouldn’t try to reach for the stars when my house was already made.

Was what I was asking for so far-fetched? Was it really like reaching for the stars? I strongly felt at the time that I did not want my first born to be alone. I had lived with a constant sense of gloom over my head for years and I did not want to come a time when I wouldn’t be there for her, and she would have no one else to call family. I wanted to give her a sister, a forever friend, an unfulfilled dream that I had always had.

How did I know my second-born would be a girl? I’m not really sure but I know I had wanted for Aurora to have a sister and the rest of it didn’t matter.

It was not an easy year and a half trying to conceive. I had doctors and priests tell me it was a futile endeavour. I had friends who mocked me for being so stubborn and silly.

My stubborn-ness eventually led me to find peace through yoga. In this small room, I not only found the strength that I needed to not give up on myself but the hope that I could achieve this dream that I’d carried with me. I had the most supportive instructors who guaranteed that we could turn the tide around and that I should focus on a self-healing journey instead. Four months later I was in a healthier place physically & emotionally and we were blessed with the most amazing news.

A further rough 10 months followed by an even trying 19.5 hours and then an additionally difficult 9 days before my stubborn little ball of smiles, dimples and all, made her way into our hearts and our home. And I fell in love all over again. The third time in a lifetime!

For a long while, the only journey my husband spoke about wherever we went and with whomever we met, was the labour & delivery process of my 4.11 Kg, big headed little baby girl, my middle child.

The labour was intense. There was a lot of praying, begging, anxiety ridden moments. I didn’t think I would make it. I didn’t think she would make it. It was an excruciating experience and toward the end of the process I still believe to this day, that there were more people in the labour room than were actually physically there. I imagined seeing people in white robes, cheering me on, encouraging me to push through. They could have been consulting doctors, nurses, mid-wives, students, or even angels.

She was born healthy, but not breathing and had to be resuscitated. Her voice was feeble and soft when the doctors finally got her to breathe. I could barely hear her first cry when she did.

She had to be moved to the NICU within the day and that’s where she stayed for the next seven days. I was discharged and was not allowed to stay with her. Her father and I would visit her once every day because he had to go back in to work soon after she was born. He would come get me after work and we would drive to the hospital every night to spend an hour with our precious child, for a whole week.

God & my mother were witness to the tears we cried every drive to and from the hospital, returning home without her in our arms.

Every visit, we would walk past other new borns in the NICU who were one-third the size of our little baby. It hurt to see these little ones in that cold dark room alone, attached to beeping machines, with their little bodies encased in glass containers, like in a museum for display, sleeping.

I would hold my little one, nurse her for an hour while her father looked on, never taking his eyes off her even for a second, the longest we have gone without looking at our phones in the present day & age, fearing to even touch her, hoping and praying against hope that she was getting better and we could take her home soon.

Finally, when she did make it home, I refused to let anyone touch her – I did everything for her on my own! I changed her, fed her, bathed her, put her down for her naps, put her to bed at night, I clothed her, I held her, I loved her! She was perfect! I was perfectly happy and anxious at the same time! Stressed beyond explanation that something should happen to her again.

Today, she is the quirkiest, most empathetic and stubborn of my three stubborn children. She will hold my hand on my hardest days. Her hugs are so forthcoming and without restraint. She always has a shoulder to cry on if I need one (as long as I keep the tears off her clean & dry clothes and body). And she is LOUD!