Sparrow

In utero, Sequoia grew from a single fertilized egg into a multicelled organism. During pregnancy as I began to connect with her on a mama-daughter level, she was never the girl-child that she actually is today. Against my will, I connected to her as if she were some sort of creature from a far off land. Her movements - the rolls, the tumbles, the kicks - confirmed this to me. During the second trimester, I connected to her as a small furry animal; maybe a soft cuddly kitten or even a woodchuck. Later on in the third trimester she became a bird, and with wings, oh my! Although I recognized the strangeness of my connecting to her in this way, I was okay with it other than my fearing what little I could offer her as a human-mama and not as her creature-mama. I feared her flying away as soon as my cervix opened. -- But now she is Sequoia, a small girl-child named after her daddy's favorite tree in northern California. And just recently I learned that the actual name of the redwood tree has its origins from the Cherokee tribe. The story goes that when a Native American woman from the Cherokee tribe gave birth to her son in 1770, a sparrow landed on the window of her house. Her mother named her son Tsis-kwa'ya ("The Sparrow").

Well, I guess I gave birth to a bird after all.

P.S. For those that ask about a nickname, you are invited to call her "Sparrow".