The room was dark, save for the slivers of light from the hallway peeking underneath the heavy curtain.  I heard mouse clicks and the clacking of keyboards in-between the hum of the air conditioner and the sound of my shaky breath.  But otherwise, just silence, and the reverberating of sound from the monitor.  A heartbeat.  It sounded like if ocean waves went through autotune.  Womp womp womp womp.  

Alex held my hand tightly while my other hand stroked the paper sheeting laid under me, the kind that sticks to you as you hoist your body up to leave.  The technician was gliding her plastic probe over my exposed belly, pausing occasionally to click and tap on her machine.

After some time, she cleared her throat and asked, “Would you like to know if you’re having a boy or a girl?”  I locked eyes with Alex and after a breath, we nodded yes.  

“It’s a girl.”  

I felt the tears well up in my heart first, and then travel to my eyes.  Alex squeezed my hand and smiled at me.  I smiled back and looked up at the ceiling.  I didn’t know how to feel.  I was happy and terrified at the same time.  Closing my eyes, I thought of my childhood.  My diary, my favorite toy, my first kiss.  

I thought of being picked last in P.E. because I was a girl, being bullied for speaking up too loudly or wearing the wrong thing, being regarded as “less than” by my relatives because I wouldn’t carry the family name, and all the times I felt broken or not good enough because men felt entitled to my heart, my body, or my attention, and I felt obligated to give it.  

As a girl, and even now, as a grown woman, I find myself constantly apologizing for who I am.  

As I laid in that examination room, my heart ached in grief simply to imagine a similar experience for my daughter, who had yet to breathe her first breath of air.  She was safe there, with me, in me.  She had yet to hear her first critique, been told to “smile more,” be softer or quieter, or apologize for who she was.  I wanted to shield her from all of that — from what I went through.  

Now that she is here, I’m realizing the privilege it is to be her mother — to heal myself through my mothering, empowering, and encouraging love.  To change and redeem my own story  and brokenness while she is still writing hers.  This was God’s gift to me.  She is.

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