FLASHBACK #48: A Birth Worth Waiting For!

One year and five days after the birth of my sister's stillborn little girl (see Flashback 24), my gorgeous, plump and healthy little neice came into the world. Not without it's complications, the whole pregnancy had had the family on tenterhooks.

My sister was as brave as hell throughout and, at one point during the birth, her blood pressure dropped so low that it was a miracle that we didn't lose her. The days following the birth witnessed a clamour; the proud grandparents, Aunts and Uncles and cousins, all of them wanting a glimpse of the oh-so-health-looking child, the one who was certainly worth the wait.

Even now, when I think back to the loss of my first neice, my heart still hurts; the injustice of it, how the hospital hadn't detected that something wasn't quite right, how crack addicts give birth to babies while my sister's wasn't even granted one breath. But now the injustice was easier to stomach as we had something more precious than anything in our midst, something that all of us would see grow and grow and grow until, one day, she would be a woman, just like her caring mother and her adorable grandmother before her.

I remember holding her hand while the doctors and nurses did their checks in the Intensive Care Unit. She was there because of the complications during childbirth although my neice was absolutely fine. It didn't seem believable at first that, gently gripping my finger, I was looking down on the first of a new generation.