Surgical lights flooded the room casting shadows of two doctors, two nurses, and my husband.  Flat on my back looking up toward the heavens, my heart prayed for her to be alright. The doctor relayed a play by play like a baseball game announcer on an am radio station.  Medical personnel scattered to and fro following her orders. My husband held my left hand and squeezed it twice. He was smiling and nodding while his other hand caressed my face.  A sharp metal on metal sound jerked my head away from facing him. A nurse had dropped something on a tray and hurried to roll some machine across the room.

“She’s out.” The doctor’s drone like emotionless voice said.  My husband echoed her statement. With my breath held hostage in my lungs, I waited.  At some point my mind started counting. One…two… twelve…thirty-four…fifty-eight,,,a loud cry from the corner and tears streamed down filling my ear.  Before I knew it, the nurse brought a tiny yellow blanket bundle to me with a face the size of a small apple and coffee brown eyes refusing to blink looking at me.  I smiled and said hi to the little one who had spent the last two months tap dancing on my bladder.

I knew from my second ultrasound that I was going to give birth to a girl.  What that meant for me as a mother was never clear until I saw her small, fragile tiny face.  She was born six weeks early and would no doubt have struggles as a result.

Growing up as a female in America is an obstacle course full of physical and emotional pitfalls.  Girls are expected to dress, speak, and act a certain way. Girls get blamed for just about everything that happens to them.  If a boy teases her, it’s her fault because the boy is just expressing that he likes her. If another girl teases, her, it’s her fault because the other girl is jealous of something about her.  As she grows, she is told that if she dresses a certain way and gets attention, or eve assaulted, it’s because she wanted it. This poor girl is responsible for how she behaves and how everyone else around her behaves.  Basically, being a girl is hard. How would I be able to guard, guide, and equip this little baby girl for the hostile world she is going to encounter?