Today, Baby is three months old. Or 12 weeks, which doesn’t translate exactly into three months on the calendar, but you get the picture. She’s a big girl now!

Which is to say, according to Karp and others who argue that the first three months of a baby’s life is in effect a ‘fourth trimester’ of fetal development, she is no longer a fetus! Yay!

Fetus or baby? You decide.

So even though this isn’t, technically, a birthday, it’s a day for celebration.

Because, for one, if Karp and everyone else are correct that the first three months of a baby’s life would, were it not for the, er, limitations of the female anatomy, otherwise be spent in the womb – thereby extending pregnancy for another ghastly 12 weeks, never mind the worse, nay unspeakable, part where we would have to pass the gigantic creatures through our nether parts – (pause for breath) because if they are all correct about their fourth trimester theory then I for one am PROFOUNDLY grateful to babies everywhere and to mine in particular for having the decency to come on out and do the last stage of their growing in the cold light of living day. Because people? She’s BIG now. At least she seems so to me. And I’m really freakin’ glad that she did that growing outside of my body. So props and cheers to Baby Emilia for doing right by her Mommy!

AND it’s a day for celebration because, above all else, on that day twelve weeks ago when her little fetal self burst out to do the rest of her growing outside, she became the all-time, no-contenders, greatest gift that I ever have received or ever will receive. Because watching and helping her grow has been and will always be the biggest honour of my life. Because she’s made every day a miraculous, surprising, awesome day. Because she’s made every day a day for celebration.

So I’ll be celebrating every day. Yep, even through the fog of sleep-deprivation and the sludge of poo and spit, and later, through the frustrations of clashing wills with a no-doubt pissy adolescent. I’ll be celebrating. It may require more liquor, but I’ll still be celebrating her, and me, and us (that, of course, includes Daddy).

Now: Baby! Here’s lookin’ at you, kid

Originally posted at Her Bad Mother, 2006. Copyright Catherine Connors 2006 – 2009.