My last blog entry was on December 11, 2008. At that time, I was just about seven months’ pregnant with our first child. My due date was February 21, 2009. The next day I fell off the face of the earth.

On December 12, 2009, at 2:02 p.m., Leia was born via emergency caesarean section. She was 3 lbs. 8.4 ozs. To say we were unprepared would be a huge understatement. We didn’t even have names ready. Our first child was “Baby Girl” for the first four days of her life.

What followed was four days of hospitalization for me, six weeks of hospitalization in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) for Baby Leia, and then another six weeks of staying with my parents in a nearby town before I was able to come home with the baby. While I stayed with the baby at my parents’ house, my husband completed most of the renovation projects in our house and wrapped up the loose ends of a business we had just sold.

(To say the Universe moves in mysterious and serendipitous and timely ways is also an understatement.)

I am just starting to come up for air. Our baby girl Leia (yes, like Princess Leia <g>) is doing wonderfully. She’s a good eater, and at three and a half months, she is now a little over 12 lbs. Our little butterball. She’s a wonderful baby, just beautiful. She’s got a great temperament.

Now that we are home, I am eager to get back to writing. I stopped writing at first for obvious reasons. I was at the hospital constantly, my eyes fixated on this wondrous little person. I didn’t want to blink and miss anything.

There was this one moment right at the beginning, when I was first allowed to hobble down the hall by myself to visit her. I was staring at her little face through the plexiglass of her temperature-controlled isolette, and that’s when I got it. I just got it. And I thought, wow, if ever I could capture in words this feeling I have, this experience of becoming a parent, a mother, and do it justice, anyone who read those words would make sure they became parents too. Because if I could adequately describe how beautiful, how soul-moving that moment was, nobody in their right mind would want to miss out. And if I could do that, I’d be one helluva writer.

I’ve always had a thousand reasons for wanting to become one helluva writer, but now I’ve got one good one. Her name is Leia.

And so now we’re back, from outer space….