HAPPY HALF BIRTHDAY, CLOVER

Tomorrow at 5:01pm, Clover will have been in this world for 6 months.  It is hard to believe that she has been in my life for 15 months, if you include the pregnacy.  For some reason, early in my pregnancy, I was convinced that I was going to have a boy.  I would have been good with having a boy, but I really hoped the baby would be a girl.  I even painted her nursery blue before I knew for sure. At 18 weeks, we went to UAB for genetic testing, ultrasounds and an amniocentesis.  We had good news from premlinary tests, so we decided against having an amnio.  When we were having the ultrasound, I kept waiting for the technician to tell me I was having a boy.  She said, "See, here are the kidneys."  I heard, "See, here you see its a boy."  I looked at Johnny and told him she said it was a boy.  Then she said, "No, I said here are the kidneys."  Then she asked me if I wanted to know the sex and she showed us we were having a girl.  That was the happiest moment in my pregnancy. I cried for most of the rest of the visit and we left and I started calling all my family as soon as we got to the car.

Now that our little girl is here and 6 months old, she has brought more joy to me than I could have imagined.  She has been fairly easy to care for and has been very healthy.  She is very easy going and gentle.  She loves her books and loves to play.  She is a lot of fun and has a good sense of humor.  She smiles constantly and is just a happy baby.  She has her moments where she can be a little reserved and shy.  Sometimes she seems to be just taking it all in, observing and thinking about everything.  I'm wondering if we have just gotten really lucky that she hasn't had colic or gone through a rough period that would make my days and nights miserable.  Then I wonder if maybe that is still to come.  She has slept in her crib since she was 3 weeks old and usually sleeps at least 10 hours straight for the last 3 months.  I still don't sleep as much as I would like, because I get up and check on  her about 3 times in the middle of the night to make sure she is still breathing.   I will probably do that until the day she leaves for college.