Love.

What. A. Week.

There really aren't words to describe...what started as a normal, busy May week swept us totally by surprise when we welcomed Adah Sophia into the world on Wednesday, May 12th. Her birth story is still flashing in my mind constantly like some parallel universe strange movie, something I was totally a part of but that I feel like I was also watching in some bizarre, foggy sense. I never could have imagined the way that Adah's birth story unfolded; from having her three weeks early (and still needing to finish my UW grades...), to riding to the hospital in an ambulance, to managing the drug-free birth I had only hoped for (through "primal animalistic screams," says my husband), Adah is now in our arms. Right now I'm sitting next to this little tiny swaddled person as she sleeps contently, and I am marveling at her beauty, her life, her tiny breath and the story she will write for herself, with Paul and I there to support her along the way.

All wrapped up in my own little world, the real world has continued to spin around us this week, and I'd be crazy not to share my sister's beautifully haunting, heart-wrenching piece about the little boy who was the sole survivor in the Libyan desert plane crash. Sitting here this morning, with my little girl, I am reading this post and remembering my own encounter with The Little Prince in French 1004 at the U of M. And I am marveling at the depth of the words that didn't seem nearly as brilliant back then - perhaps because I was pain-stakingly trying to translate them from French, but more likely because of where life has brought me since.

I have never felt so vulnerable as I feel at this very moment, with the unmistakable vulnerability of brand new life sleeping in my arms. I am petrified by how Adah might be challenged and tried throughout her life, and about how Paul and I will manage as we stumble around to be the best parents we know how to be. I hope so many many things for her - that she knows love and finds joy in her own life, ultimately. And I pray for her today, just like I will pray for the little Libyan desert prince, that somehow we are able to instill enough love into her for each moment that we have together, that she will have the resilience to endure (and flourish) in anything life throws her way.

Adah, we know we'll mess up. We're sure we already have. But we'll do our best and we'll love you for every second of every single day. Here's to you, little angel, as you embark on the most wonderful and unpredictable of journeys...