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It's funny how life shapes you in ways you never expected. I was never one of those girls who, growing up, knew for sure that they wanted to have kids. But eight years ago I became a mother and it changed my life forever,  for the better. My first daughter entered my world 4 weeks early and just 8 days shy of Mother's Day.  And after spending 2 days in the hospital where she was born, she had to be moved across town to another hospital. The very thought of this infuriated me when they first told me what they were planning to do. Still in bed myself, having had a child via C-section only two days earlier, did not stop me from calling up hospital administration and questioning them as to why they would move a critical 2 day old. Bottom line, it was politics. There was a supplemental insurance program my daughter qualified for because of her tender condition, but the hospital we were in didn't offer this program. So they weren't moving her because it was in her best interest—it was in the best interest of the people footing the bill. I asked what would happen if I refused to let them move her, and they told me my insurance could refuse payment for everything—my surgery, the hospital stay, etc. So I begrudgingly agreed to let them load her up in her incubator, with a respiratory therapist in tow, and drive across town in an ambulance that I wasn't even allowed to ride with her in.

Any mother knows how hard it is to let their children fly the nest, but when they are two days old their wings aren't even dry yet. After my own doctor finally showed up and discharged me, we still had to wait another hour (2 total) for the staff's shift change before we could get into the new NICU to see her. I was beside myself. What new mother wants to go home without her newborn? But I had no choice. The whole experience was new to me and nothing like I had imagined it would be. 

After spending her first  few days on a feeding tube, I was finally able to nurse my daughter for the first time—by then she was already 5 days old. But I was determined and even pumped breast milk and brought it in for the nurses to feed her during the night when I couldn't be there. Every time we came, which was at least twice a day, we had to scrub in. And me, only days out of surgery, scuffling along the hallways, never fast enough to get to my baby girl.

In most of the first pictures of her she has velcro circles on either side of her face where they attached her sleeping mask to keep the light out of her face. And my first interaction with her was much more limited than I wanted—I could touch her, but not hold her. Still, 8 years later, she is strong and healthy and you would never know from looking what we had to endure the first week of her life.

The Friday before my first Mother's Day we showed up at the hospital early so we could talk to the pediatrician, who we were hoping and praying would discharge her. If not we would have to wait until the following Monday. We had to watch a video on infant CPR and talk to a social worker, which annoyed me. But finally, they let us buckle our sweet girl into her car seat and take her home for the very first time. I sat in the back seat with her to watch her and hold her tiny hand. I couldn't get enough of her, this little miracle who had made her entrance in a quite unexpected way. And from the moment she was born everything shifted, suddenly she was my sun and my life revolved around her...and four and a half years later, her sister was added to my solar system.

They are the two best gifts I have ever received, yet I know they are not my possessions. They are their own unique, individual selves and have only been entrusted to me. I have been given the most important job I will ever have and with little to no previous experience. And it is the only job I have ever loved and would never quit—one I will never tire of or retire from. And if I do it well, one day, I may be promoted to Grandma.