It is September of 2007 and I am the happiest woman on the planet, I am convinced. My fiance, (God, how I love that word!) and I are basking in our recent engagement by taking an impromptu trip to Marco Island, a place we have visited many times during our courtship. After landing in Ft. Myers, we pick up our rental car, pick up groceries and dump our bags at the condo before finding our way to the beach, both of us anxious to put our toes in the sand. It is late afternoon and many of the beach goers are packing up their umbrellas, shaking out their towels, brushing sand off of bright plastic beach toys. My fiance and I walk hand in hand, carrying our shoes in our other free hand. We talk about our first date, first kiss, about how far we've come and all that lies before us. We are just about to reenact that first kiss, when we are interrupted by a giggle and a flash of pink. We look down to see an adorable little girl who couldn't be older than 2 or 3, toddle past us, curly dark hair bouncing under a yellow sunhat; white pampers peeking out of a ruffled pink polka dot bathing suit. Just behind her is her father. "Suzie!" he calls. And then he calls her by her full name "Susannah! Come here!" (The name has been changed so as not ruin the surprise)My fiance and I turn to each other. "Wow. I really like that name," I say.
"I love it." He agrees.
And we lock that name away as a keeper for hopeful future use.
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It is December of 2008, our first Christmas as newlyweds. My husband (God, how I love that word!) and I are attempting to ice skate for the first time in years. We are downtown at Millennium Park in Chicago. The speakers are blaring Christmas music, and the rink is filled with families. Kids are seemingly everywhere, whizzing by us at high speeds, falling down and getting back up again without care or concern. I suppose when we made these plans to come downtown and ice skate, I had an overly romantic idea of how it would be: Snow softly falling, my husband and I holding hands, gently skating around the rink, stopping to kiss or make a snow angel or take a smiling and rosy-cheeked photo to put on our Christmas cards.
Unfortunately, this is not the reality. My husband will not even hold my hand for fear of falling. "Don't touch me!" he yells as he gingerly makes his way around the rink, jerking his body every now and then so that anyone who sees him probably thinks he has Turrets. I don't fare much better, practically clinging to the railing, cringing whenever a pint sized Michelle Kwan double axles too near to me. After about fifteen minutes of this torture, we turn in our skates and settle in for some well deserved hot chocolate.
As we sip and warm up, we notice a couple sitting near us, with their little girl, about 4 or 5 years old. Her mother removes the child's purple fleece hat to reveal a mop of brown hair that is standing on end from static electricity. The little girl, however, does not seem to care or notice and instead is concentrating on blowing on her hot chocolate so she can drink it.
My husband looks at me and smiles wistfully. "Whaaaat?" I ask, though I already know what.
"I'm ready for Suzie to be here. I want Susannah here with us now."
My husband and I both want to have children, but while he wants to start yesterday, I want to wait until we've been married one year. This is our plan and we're sticking to it.
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It is July of 2009 and I am nearly finished training for my first ever marathon. It is early on a Saturday morning and I am preparing for a 12 mile run. We have just learned that my cousin gave birth to a baby girl the day before, in Paris. The news is exciting and wonderful and has caused my husband and I to wonder about our own future children. When we start *trying* will we be able to conceive right away? What if it takes us a year or more? What if we can't? I push these thoughts away for the moment, for I need to focus on my training. I am running this marathon for my other cousin who is battling Lymphoma. My husband comes up behind me and wraps his arms around me, one of my favorite gestures in the whole world. He seems to know what I'm thinking. Aloud, he says, "Hang on, Suzie girl. Your mommy has to run a marathon for her cousin, but when she's done, you can come right on into our world." I turn to him and hug him, then look up and echo his words. "That's right, Susannah. Mommy just needs to do this one thing and then we will be ready for you!"
The marathon was on October 19th.
We got pregnant on or around October 6th.
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It is Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010 and I am beside myself with nerves and anticipation. It is the day of the big ultrasound. After making it past the first trimester, and getting a normal 2nd trimester screen for certain birth defects, this is the final hurdle before I can finally breathe.
My husband is holding my hand as the ultrasound tech slathers my belly with cold gel. She places the wand on my abdomen and almost immediately we see our baby, whom we haven't seen since week 8 when he or she looked more like a gummy bear than a baby. But now we see the head and the outline of a precious little nose and mouth. The tech tells us that she needs to take measurements of the anatomy and would we like to know the gender?
"Yes!" My husband and I both nod.
We see an amazing and incredible series of images that I will never forget. We see the spine, the four chambers of the heart pumping blood through a tiny body. We see fingers and toes, knees and elbows. We see kidneys and spleen and the umbilical cord with the red blood feeding our baby and the blue being carried away. I am mesmerized by what I'm seeing and find it incredibly surreal to feel my baby move within me and see it on the screen at the same time.
Suddenly, the tech focuses in on an image that I can't quite make out. I am about to ask what we are looking at, when she starts to type words onto the screen. "It's....a....girl." she writes.
I cannot stop the tears and the laughter that are filling me, exploding into the small white room. My husband in his suit and tie is squeezing my hand and covering my face with kisses. "It's Susannah!" he beams. "It's her! She's coming! We talked to her, we called her into being and now she is here!"
Now she is here. And she is ours. We remember a time when we were first dating and talking about how we both wanted a dog - lab. A chocolate lab. "I've always wanted a chocolate lab and I would name him Duncan," Dave had said. Four weeks later he received an email about a litter of lab puppies, among them - one chocolate. It was our Duncan. We had talked about him and he came into our lives. And now the same was happening with our Susannah.
Later, we are back in the waiting room. In several minutes we will be seeing the doctor to go over the ultrasound (which will show that everything is normal and looks good). Both of us are on our phones, calling our parents to share the good news: It's a girl! Dave is on the phone with his mother and he tells her the name that we've chosen for our baby girl. His mother is surprised. "You're naming her after my mother?" She asks.
Dave and I look at each other. We are stunned. Dave's grandmother passed away when he was a toddler, and he never knew her. Everyone called his grandmother by a nickname and he never knew that her actual given name was Susannah.
This instantly makes our choice that much more perfect. The original Susannah was a strong, brave woman who raised a daughter on her own. What an honor. And because we are naming her after Dave's grandmother, her middle name will be after my own Nana - my mother's mother, Mary. She was also a strong, independent woman, working hard to provide for her daughter, without the help of a husband.
The two women have a lot in common. So much so, that it's hard for me not to picture them in heaven, friends for eternity, now bonded together by their precious great grandchild, named after them both.
