I knew I was pregnant the minute it happened. Immediately after consummation, I looked at my boyfriend (we weren’t married yet) and said, “You just got me fucking pregnant.”

He said, “Oh, I thought next week was the bad week.”

I jumped to Google to serve as our Modern-Day Genie: “What’s the optimal date to get pregnant if your last period was August 21st?” Google spat out that very day, with the reassurance that a 35 year-old-woman has only 25% chance of getting pregnant even under pristine circumstances.

“What did Google say?” He asked.

“It says I’m pregnant and soon I’ll be puking.”

I took a pregnancy test ten days later; the earliest detection test on the market. The next nine months became the unedited 365-book, sitting like a bad memory on the back of my desk, covered over with scraps of doodles. It was a difficult time dominated by puking, bed bugs and breeding rats in our drop ceiling.

I knew she was a girl from the first time I threw up. I was convinced there was too much female hormone coursing through my body overtaking my petite frame. I read scientific studies linking severe pregnancy nausea with highly intelligent kids and this kept me going – along with the due date, circled on every calendar.

During the dreadful pregnancy, my aunt said, “Every woman deserves a daughter.” This stuck with me. I had been the mommy of a boy for eight years and thought I was perfectly fit. I wasn’t a girly girl, didn’t have many girlfriends and preferred the company of males. I had gotten used to boy toys, boy clothes, boy demeanors. I knew she was a girl from day one. I joked “A boy would never treat his mother this way” every time I puked.

Most people agree she resembles a combination of the both of us, but I think she looks more like her father with my eyes. From the minute I looked into those eyes, I saw my husband’s soul staring back from my own reflection. 

My daughter turned six years old today. They say your personality is locked in by then. I pray to genetics, the universe, and my husband that my daughter never changes. She is the person I hope to become one day. Dialed to happiness, kindness, joy, and gratitude, she is also a genius. Not because she spoke her first word at four months or because she was reading by age three or because she memorized every song to Hamilton: An American Musical. She has a precocious empathetic intuitiveness far beyond her years. She senses emotions by a look, understands inflection from musical nuances and challenges me to defend every day on this planet. I truly believe the universe gives us the children we need and my girl has filled my days with glitter, magic, and perpetual rainbow glasses which put everything into clear perspective: every single day is the BEST DAY EVER!