(This was lovingly written by your Birdie, Amelia. Your parents graciously let me stay with them the week leading up to your birth. I was a witness to your special day.) 
On the day you were born, Amelia, May 21, 2014, the sun shooed the darkness from our world at 5:37 in the morning and along with its growing light, woke up the laying hens in the coop underneath the kitchen window. We all heard their clucking songs and busy bodied chatter as they told the world that the wait for you was almost over. Of course that came as no surprise to your mom and dad, Isaaca and Peter, because your mom had been in labor all night.
The song birds in the trees heard the hen’s racket and decided to join in the chorus. Their song was heard loud and clear: “The night is over and today’s the day!” Along with your mom, dad, and myself, there was a doula there, a woman named Joy and I’m still not convinced that she wasn’t really an angel sent from heaven with short, dark curls and a smile that would calm any first time mother. Joy had been summoned and had arrived in the dead middle of night to give both emotional and physical support for Isaaca. She agreed with the birds as she gently put pressure on Isaaca’s lower back and finished timing a contraction. It was time to go to the hospital.
Millie, it’s always an odd, surreal feeling when you leave your house to go to the hospital to have a baby. I remember when I had your mother, I looked around my living room before I walked out of the front door and thought, “The next time I come into this room, I’ll have a baby in my arms.” I walked outside to the car and on the way I stopped. I looked around my yard at the cheerful flower pots that had recently been planted and the patio chairs placed neatly on the porch. The next time I watered them and sat on my porch, I would have a little baby. The paradigm shift was happening for your parents now and the world was at that moment making room for you. It was a magical feeling that already felt weighted by your presence.
We were giddy, yet already exhausted when we got into the car to drive to the hospital. It was like vacation, graduation, wedding day and every birthday we had ever celebrated, rolled into one. There would never be another day like it and in the way that time seems to move forward in slow motion in an ethereal way when your world is changing at that precise moment, I saw things I usually didn’t see.
You came into this world on a day when the pink peonies were in full bloom in the garden; their heavy, luscious blooms arched over almost to the ground as if to say, “Welcome, Your Majesty.” Their heady scent wafted up into the humid atmosphere and the earth sighed with contentment.
The highways were dressed up in their finest: Queen Anne’s Lace tastefully displayed in shallow ditches and clumps of proud tall weeds and forest trees. Nothing like a little royal lace to make the occasion special. Only the best for you, little one.
The neighbor’s cottonwood tree was complying with the day’s wishes too. It was doing that “thing it does in May” and released its little cottony puffs out onto the gentle breeze and made the entire road look like God had taken our world, turned it upside down, given us a good shake and made snow fall! It was as if we were in the perfect world of a snow globe. Nature was showing off its magic tricks for you, my dear.
The silver-gray clouds wanted to rain for you and the sun wanted to shine for you, their silly sparring giving us the weather report that your birth day would be “partly cloudy with a chance of showers.” Oh, the drama you were already creating!
We arrived at the hospital and I was so excited and absent minded that I bumped into the car parked in front of me! Luckily, I caused no damage but I seemed to be adding my own drama to that day!
Within a few hours, everyone of your aunts, uncles and close friends to your parents had filled up the waiting room on the Labor and Delivery floor at Vanderbilt Hospital. Your older cousin Lily, took off down the hospital corridor with her pink blanket trailing behind her as she gibber-jabbered to anyone who would listen: “Where is my new cousin?”
I slipped into the birthing room with your mom and dad and room full of caretakers. There was a mid-wife, the doula and some hospital nurses waiting to welcome you into this world. The room was semi-dark and there was a type of primitive music playing in the background. It was like calming, spa music. We spoke in whispers and watched as Isaaca’s body took over. My heart was beating in my throat and your dad and I were crying for joy…for the wonder of it all.
She was my hero that day, your mother. There were no medications to be taken, nothing to dull the pain. We never heard her cry out or lose control during the process of your birth. She was focused only on you; only on holding you in her arms.
The midwife said it was time for you to be born. Your dad was so brave. Peter caught you in his arms as you slid into the world at 2:19 p.m., all seven pounds and five ounces of you! He placed you on your mothers tummy and soon cut the umbilical cord that connected his two favorite girls.
You were so beautiful on the day you were born, Amelia Lynn Groenwald. Covered in a downy fuzz, you were a true, Tennessee peach! Blonde hair, blue eyes…the perfect combination of your parents. 
One by one the family members and friends slipped in for just a peek of you and the proud parents. What they saw was nature at its finest, bonding at its closest and a little family that was totally wrapped up in a blanket of God’s holy love. The magic of that one moment made those who already had children, want to go home and make more glorious babies. It made those who had not yet had children, imagine themselves settling down and having their own offspring. It’s like when they saw you, Millie, and the love your parents had for you and each other…seeds were planted for your future cousins to be born. And that, dear Millie was exactly what this Grandma wanted to see! Grandparents do not mind collecting more grandchildren!
Eventually, we all left you and your parents at the hospital to bond together and be pampered a bit. Many of us went out for dinner to celebrate and toast your arrival into our beautiful world. We all compared the baby pictures of you we had taken on our smart phones and began texting them to Grandma and Boppy in Chicago and Pops in North Carolina. They would all be arriving in town to see you over the next few days. Already, your world was accommodating and celebrating you, Princess Millie!
On the night you were born, Millie, the sun edged its way out of the sky at 7:50 p.m. A few lightning bugs glowed in the big oak trees and the night swallowed up the day in one big gulp. The stars were exotic jewels and the moon was a soft, luminous pearl. It was all for you, Millie. “See how they shine for you?”
Here’s a song for you:
themuseinme 