Well, my brother called me while I was in a meeting on July 9th. He didn't leave a voicemail, so I quickly texted him to see what was up.
SOUND. THE. ALARMS.
My brother kept me posted throughout the afternoon and by the time I got home I had so much nervous energy that I changed the sheets on our bed, rearranged the kitchen cabinets, went for a long walk, and ironed three pairs of shorts.
I've never ironed shorts before in my life and I haven't since.
I didn't know what to do with myself.
Finally, when there was no baby by 10:00, I sat down to paint my nails. I painted my toes blue and my fingers pink because we didn't know if the baby was boy or girl and I am an equal opportunity aunt.
And then at 11:00, when there was still no baby, I repainted my fingers blue because even though I thought girl all along I was having an eleventh hour change of heart.
And THEN I got into bed where I laid wide awake the entire night except for maybe twenty minutes when I fell asleep and had a dream that it was TWIN BOYS.
I woke up at the crack of dawn and picked my sister up and we walked laps at the mall because there was nothing left in my tiny apartment to clean or organize and did I mention the nervous energy?
Then we went to Panera where we got iced caramel lattes, and just as we sat down my brother texted "Not much longer now."
I looked at Emily and said, "DO YOU THINK WE SHOULD LEAVE? I FEEL LIKE WE SHOULD LEAVE."
She wasn't about to argue, so we left.
We went to my parents' house and Emily made me a grilled cheese sandwich and I ate exactly one bite. And then I made the executive decision that we needed to go to Target and pick out a boy outfit and a girl outfit. We picked out the cutest outfits in the store and then we walked around.
And around.
And around again.
And then we discreetly hid our outfits on the very back of a rack and walked next door to TJ Maxx because I promise you we had looked at every piece of merchandise in Target.
Twice.
And when we looked at every piece of merchandise in TJ Maxx, we went back to Target, re-secured our outfits, and began walking through the purse department for the fourteenth time when my brother called and said, "You have a niece!"
We left for the hospital as soon as my dad got home from work and even though baby A had to spend her first night in the NICU, we got to go up and see her.
Sidenote: we had to scrub in to the NICU and I really felt like I was on Grey's Anatomy. As I was sudsing up at the sink and saw a doctor pass by I really had to resist the urge to yell, "Push one of epi! We're going to need a CT, and page cardio!"
Anyway, to the surprise of no one, she was the most adorable little peanut in the world.
My sister and I went back to the hospital for a few hours the next day and got to hold our new favorite family member to our heart's content.
When baby A is older, I'll apologize for my blue nails in these pictures.
But I hope she will appreciate that even though my nails were the wrong color when I met her for the first time, my shorts were crisply ironed.
