My Birthday Celebration Day 2

I was reminiscing about the last 57 years and thinking about what I would consider as the highlights of my life. I think my greatest accomplishment are my two beautiful, smart and talented daughters. I was truly blessed. I never thought about having kids. I had a childhood ailment that everyone involved believed had rendered me sterile. So it was a big surprise when I got pregnant at 34 and again at 42.

I'm old school so I had both my daughters with midwifes. Raven in the hospital and Syeda at home. Home birth trumps hospital  any day. I did not want my kids to have any drugs in their system. I threatened to do bodily harm to the hospital midwife if she slapped Raven or caused trauma in any way. The hospital midwifes were not well trained. I had a tremendous lose of blood and came home with both  arms in splints. Enough said, I'm getting angry just thinking about it. Yes, race placed a factor.

With Syeda my home birth midwives were awesome. I delivered standing up.in front of two blonde Unity carvings. At first baby girl did not want to come. My midwife's nine month old son  crawled under the table and got behind me and called to her in baby talk. She then delivered.

I nursed my girls 11 and 23 months respectively.   With Raven, I had to stop nursing because I went to work for the Detroit City Council and pumping for me did not work. With Syeda I was working for the Detroit Board of Education which allowed only six weeks maternity leave. I'll never forget when I called in to quit. The elder who took my resignation asked why I was resigning. When I said my six weeks were up and I was still nursing and didn't want to leave my baby, she replied "God Bless you dear".



Raven and Syeda have like all kids stretched the boundaries of my knowledge and patience. Raven my eldest is a super sales woman and recently left Tiffany's and took a pay cut to obtain experience in human resources. She went to work at Torneau the high end watch company at Fashion Square at 18. Her manager later told me that they had never hired an 18 year old and weren't supposed to hire Raven. They were blown away by her retail experience and the fact that she made personal and store quota from the time she wanted in the door

Syeda my baby girl will enter high school this year. (Time really does fly). Both my girls are artistic and Syeda amazingly so. Her design eye is amazing. She won her first artist competition at nine.  She's attended several sessions at Scottsdale Artist School. At age 4 Syeda took gemstone beads put Shea butter on the back of them and did a mosaic on my wall. Me being me, I showed it to several well known artists who all told me to not let public school limit her talent . Her work has been copied and stolen. I showed her work to her elementary school art teacher  who informed me that students were copying her work already. Syeda has a very unique way of drawing people. We have been blessed with teachers and classes that sought to enhance her natural skills instead of pigeonholing her.


My girls have nerve wracking, joyous and stretched me beyond limits I didn't know existed. I feel truly blessed to have my daughters. I give thanks for them every day. Smile


I thank the Creator for blessing me with them in my life.


Check in tomorrow as I continue reminiscing all week about these first 57 years.


As always you can click on the title to visit my shop and keep this going. Use coupon code Birthday57 to receive 57% off through March 10, 2012

Michelle