She was our first.
We found out on a Tuesday morning in February. Two lines on the test, and neither of us could say anything for about a full minute. Then we both started laughing, then crying, then laughing again. That was the first time we felt her.
Her name was Ruth, after my grandmother, who taught me to make bread from scratch and to always answer the phone when family called. Adelaide was Owen's grandmother, who kept every letter anyone ever wrote her, tied in ribbons, in a shoebox under her bed. Ruth Adelaide was ready long before we were.
She was in a hurry from the beginning. She was small, and she was strong, and the pregnancy was hard on both of us. Owen would put his hand on my belly at night and talk to her about the day — about the neighbor's dogs, about the weather, about nothing at all — because he wanted her to know his voice for whenever we got to meet her. I sang her "The Water is Wide," a lullaby my mother sang to me. It became her song before I even knew it was going to matter.
The nursery is pale green. There's a mobile above the crib that my mother-in-law made — birds and stars, tied with cotton ribbon. Her going-home outfit was folded in the top drawer — a little cream romper with tiny embroidered leaves, because we didn't know if she'd be an October baby or a November one, and cream worked for both.
Everything was ready. She was ready. We were ready. She just didn't get to come home.
