365 Days of Change: My Entry Into Motherhood

                                My grandma Evelyn, my maternal grandmother and me when I was a few months old 

The year is 2001. It's a hot August night. Mr. W and I are out to dinner with friends when I get the phone call from my mom that my grandmother is entering the hospital and is going into emergency surgery. Mr. W and I are still newlyweds, a few months from celebrating our second anniversary. After my year of being Mary Poppins on the East Coast. I was in no hurry to have a baby.

                                        My grandma and I before I left for my honeymoon Fall of 1999. 

As the days progressed, it was clear my grandma dying. The same nurses who were delivering babies where also caring for my dying grandma. I began to eagerly anticipate walking past the nursery each evening when I'd come visit my grandma to see how many babies were born since my last visit. My mom who was a nurse, knew it was time to tell her mother that it was okay for her go. It was that moment my mom, became the matriarch of our family.  In that life changing, surreal moment something happened. I looked at Mr. W and ask days later, what are we waiting for? Then only twenty six years old, the plan was to wait to have our first child after we both turned 30. I'll never forget the bewilderment in Mr. W's eyes. 

I believe in life after death. I believe that my grandma spirit lives on. If I keep my heart, mind and eyes open she is always with me. The timing of becoming pregnant before the holidays was a blessing. Thanksgiving and Christmas after the passing of my grandma were difficult, lessened by the anticipated arrival of the newest member of our family. Baby Williams the summer of 2002.

                            Here I am pictured 40 weeks pregnant with Olivia, July 2002

There was a different energy in the room, when eleven months later in a different hospital instead of saying good-bye, in the early hours of a Friday morning in July I became a mother with my mom and Mr. W at my side. Bright eyed Olivia entered the world as if to say, here I am!



Life has an interesting way of unfolding. Early in 2001 I could have never predicated the events that later occurred in that momentous year. Me pregnant? Even crazier eighteen months later Vivian arrived. Today as I reflect on my very first Mother's Day. Life never stops. It continues. A mixture of highs and lows. I am thankful for the women in my life growing up, my mom, my grandmothers, aunts, cousins and dear family friends who were like family. They all helped me to become the woman, the mother I am today. Happy Mother's Day!