Birthday Shout Out - To My Youngest

Seventeen years ago today I nonchalantly gave birth to my second daughter. In honor of her birthday today I thought I would give some fun facts about that day and more.

• Darcy was early by two weeks. 
• We didn't know whether we were having a girl or a boy.
• Tom was sick. My doctor suggested I have someone else at my birth who could assist me in case they deemed him too contagious to be present. 
• My friend Sharon came as my plus one. She arrived at the hospital, fresh as a daisy in the wee hours of morning, coming off the elevator, hands thrown in the air, shouting, "It's okay. I'm here! Where is she? Let's have a baby, people!"
• I was told I couldn't have any water, just ice chips. Sharon sneaked me ice water which I downed.
• I had little pain. The nurses would tell me when I had a contraction via the monitors hooked to me. They couldn't believe how calm and collected I was. It made me cocky.
• I spit Darcy right out without any trouble. She was perfect.

• We only had a girl name chosen.
• Darcy got her name from my mother and Madison. My mother was giving Madison a bath and playing with a toy whale. They would squirt the water from the whale's spout and shout, "Dar, she blows!" My mother said that would be a good name for a baby girl, "Darcy Boos". We all agreed.
• It went downhill from there. I was moved from the nice birthing center to the basement of the hospital which looked like a scene from a horror movie. We were down there with minimal staff and a crack baby who cried the entire time. 
• Madison came to visit and was unimpressed with her new sister.
• Tom didn't spend the night like he had with Madison. He wasn't allowed because he was sick. I was on my own and slept little with the crying crack baby.
• We came home the next day and Darcy slept all of the time. Waking her was an effort.
• My mother, sensing something off, drove straight through the night from Indiana. It was her insisting something was wrong that made us call our pediatrician.
• We ended up at the local children's hospital where Darcy was given a spinal tap and admitted. She was dehydrated.
• We lucked out. Due to a crowded hospital, we got a quarantined room to reside in for the next four days.
• Darcy slept through most of the days hooked to beeping machines.
• Tom and I watched Lifetime channel movies one after the other in the darkened closet of a room. We never opened the blinds. I never knew what day it was.
• My mother stayed with Madison. I never left Darcy's side. Tom drove home every day to get more clothes and necessities.
• I finally diagnosed the problem myself after days of being observed and questioned by residents while trying to nurse.
• I noticed that Darcy's tongue was always on the roof of her mouth. I suggested we try a bottle. I had been pumping the entire time at the hospital and so milk was put into a tiny bottle and the nipple was used to push down her tongue, and suddenly we had a baby. 
• She ate every twenty minutes after that and started making noises and crying like a normal baby. They took out all of her tubes and unhooked her from the machines after she started eating.
• The tests all came back negative. We met with a lactose specialist who said that Darcy most likely sucked her tongue in the womb. She gave us a massaging technique that we had to do with Darcy's tongue every time before feeding her.
• After a month of sucking down my pumped breast milk, she latched on to my breast and never took another bottle.
• She sucked two fingers all of the time.
• She nursed for 17 months and only stopped after I got sick and had to take a second round of antibiotics.
• She was a great baby and the opposite of Madison.
• She would come and tell me she was tired and ask if she could nap or go to bed.
• She didn't stand on her own until right before she turned one.
• She was, and is, very loving.

Happy Birthday Darcy. You came into the world and into our lives quickly and with lots of drama, and you have lived up to that beginning. You are fiercely independent, bold and strong, full of humor and fun, and you have brought more joy into our lives than we thought possible. We are so very proud of all of your achievements and of the woman you have become. We love you to the moon and back and to infinity and beyond.