Don’t blink.
I heard that country song a few days ago and it kept playing through my head today as I watched my almost 5 foot tall beautiful 11 year old on her birthday.
How is it possible that more than a decade has already passed since she came into our world in all her screaming glory?
Every year we watch her birth video–as well as a video I made that shows the journey that we went through to get to her.
I can’t help crying every time I see it.
I think about how unlikely it was that the frozen embryo transfer she came from was going to work.
How the doctors had told us ‘we had a shot ‘ but wouldn’t give us any statistical odds like they had with the fresh IVF.
Sometimes, life just finds a way.
Love finds a way.
Hope finds a way.
And once it finds a way, you will likely be so consumed with your new life with this miracle that time will suddenly speed up.
All those lonely, long minutes without that amazing little creature will turn into warp speed blurs where sometimes you look at the calender and say out loud to yourself–it’s already (fill in the month)?
That is the curse of the post infertility parent–the fact that time suddenly goes so much faster than it did during all those cursed two week waiting periods.
You want to slow it down.
Revel in the moments a little longer.
But the lifeforce of that child seems to speed things up.
I am so proud of the amazing young lady our daughter has become.
The strength and courage she has to argue her opinion is exhausting, but admirable.
We’re doing something right if she’s showing that independence.
It’s the same independence she showed when she came into our world against the better judgments of the team of REs at St. Barnabas who had recommended against even freezing her and her other frozen sibling.
It’s just going too fast.
I blinked and today she is turning 11.
I’m learning to keep my eyes open longer.
Happy Birthday Elliana.
I love you.
Thank you for making me a daddy 11 years ago.
And thank you Lisa for always believing for that vision of seeing my eyes in our baby girl.
She is the best thing we’ve ever done, and ever will do.