The bouncing-bambam miracle.

It was 7pm, and i was getting hungry.

Should i get a McDonald’s or should i get a pizza? I need to get dressed, because i was going to my boyfriend’s dad’s place for dinner, or it wasn’t that late to probably sneak in a pizza… but it was, rude. Not gonna risk it.

Dressed up, in my standard collegiate blue-and-white: plain white button down from when i wasn’t a thousand pounds heavier, blue slacks, & my burgundy cole-haan loafers from when my feet were dainty and less tired, and my standard issue purse-tote thing that masked the thousand things “i might need” like my physics scribble notebook from junior year.

And we went to dinner. It was a formal one - and i was shocked that there were three tables to the dinner. Was there an occasion that i turned up and not brought a present? That would be rude. Horrified, i go and say my requisite heaping three-tablefuls of hellos, and straighten my crumpled hair from falling asleep on the way there.

And sat to the table where the famous uncle was seated. It seemed to have more food, luckily. And more exciting chatter. I was so looking forward to answering questions that didn’t have a pneumonic-jeopardy-countdown that rang in my head.

And since it was a traditional lauriat, it was a while until the carbs arrived - and when the fried rice plus noodles rained, it really poured. I was stuffed, beyond belief.

And then for some spatial reason, as fast as i had engulfed the bowlful sizes of course after course of yummy vegetable and meat cantonese dishes, that i hadn’t really recognised or fully knew the names to, they disintegrated inside me by the time we were licking our spoons from the icy lychee desserts.

I was hungry again.

Luckily before i got back, I suggested to boyfriend to get pizza. And then as we got the box to eat when i got back to the house, labour pains throbbed,

…throbbed some more, sharply in places that didn’t signal indigestion, throbbed a few more times,

…and just throbbed in perfectly timed spates of ten minutes interval. I then turned quietly to my exhausted boyfriend, “I think it’s time.”

Until i had to be rushed to the hospital a good 4 hours, and 3 and a half slices of thin crust pizza later, where my doctor and the ob-gyne were alerted via pocketbell pager that, at this time - it might not be a false alarm. And in true form, a good 17 hours later, a baby girl was technical-birth-plan-Lamaze-d out of my uterus, with my back resting on a big fat red beanbag.
I’m glad someone took a picture of that moment. Before i conked out from exhaustion.

And when i awoke, i was hungry again. (And massively needing to breastfeed.)

I named her Katrina, btw. That roomed-in (mistake number one) tiny thing that fit in my pillow, and the crook of my tiny arm, that i couldn’t stop staring at, for the two sleepless nights in a row (mistake number two). I think her grand-mothers were as jazzed as well and upset i couldn’t share her as much as they liked.

That little balled up 7-and-a-quarter-pounder, was mine.

And that eventuality, vivid in my mind like it was yesterday, was sitting around in my brain for around a quarter-century today. And i’m glad to have shared it, without it being a terrible massive social issue as in the Clinton years. But more like, a cause celeb eventuality of a quantum entanglement from a billion light years ago, that formed magic and unfolded into something that is more a blessing than a real community tragedy.

Happy birthday, Katja.