A good friend of mine just had her third daughter. I knew she’d be having her baby during the 40-day countdown, so I secretly put ‘hold a newborn’ on my list. Mission accomplished… but instead of just visiting and holding the baby in her first week, my friend asked if I’d like to be there for support when she delivered her baby. I said yes!

After ten days of waiting, AD texted me one night at 11:30pm that she was on her way to the hospital. I got to the hospital around 12:30 a.m. and was as supportive as I could be. Basically I was on pillows and ice chips while the miracle of birth happened right before my politely averted eyes. I don’t know that there are words to describe how totally awesome and a little bit gross the whole thing was.

I’m not sure I could be a midwife. I don’t think I could even work on a farm. But it was pretty cool that I was there and I wouldn’t trade this experience for anything. And I got to ‘hold a newborn’ within minutes of her birth.

Each year when we celebrate our birthday, what we are actually celebrating is the anniversary of the day we were born – our birth day. For my 40^th birthday, I marked the occasion with a real live day of birth. How cool is that?

Here she is at four-days-old. But I really was there when she arrived!