Text messages
Rebekah : My water has broken, admitted to hospital. Will keep you posted.
Me: Praying for you. Let me know when you want me to come.
Rebekah: Ben will call when she is here.
Rebekah : My water has broken, admitted to hospital. Will keep you posted.
Me: Praying for you. Let me know when you want me to come.
Rebekah: Ben will call when she is here.
I haven't told my husband, snoring sweetly beside me. Only drowsing is possible, with much squinting at the digital clock and listening in the dark to the grandfather clock bong the hours, chime the quarters. It's like waiting for a teenage Girl Child to get home by curfew.
Rebekah had several baby showers. Actually, after the first baby the gifting parties are called sprinkles—less equipment is needed: Baby bed, car seat, stroller, high chair, check, check, check, check.
However, as this baby is to be the little sister of two big brothers, there are fewer available hand-me-down clothes.
So four grandmothers (myself included), six aunts, and an honored guest or two—all went into a frenzied competition to buy the most darling outfits. Girly-girl newborn to onesies and twosies with one caveat: no pink. Girly but not pink: it is possible.
Perhaps I can catch a few winks.
6 am. No word. No, I won't call. It would be like ringing up a marathoner to chat before the finish line.
"What is her name?" (Rebekah and Ben with each of their children have a policy to tell the baby first, before the rest of the family.
"Carys," he says. Carys Griffith. My spell checker keeps changing it to Cary's. Retraining needed. It sounds lovely, Carys. Though if she is a redhead like her big brother, it will be Carrots for sure, like Anne of Green Gables.
"Carys," he says. Carys Griffith. My spell checker keeps changing it to Cary's. Retraining needed. It sounds lovely, Carys. Though if she is a redhead like her big brother, it will be Carrots for sure, like Anne of Green Gables.
"When can we come?" I ask, and for this third baby I could wait if Rebekah wants to rest. Ben asks her, and I hear her say, "Whenever she wants." They are still in the delivery room.
Jesse is too excited to sleep in. "We have a tiny little girl," he says, bright-eyed with delight. 
Joy is what this feeling is.
7:36 am. Ben calls back. "I forgot to tell you something. Her hair is bright red, just like Rylan's was."
Oh, Carrots, I can't wait to hold you.