Welcome to the world!

Around the same time I really decided to make the move from NJ to HI, one of the people I've known the longest, and know the most, got pregnant.  She's one of few who has been to my house, who has had private conversations with my mother, who knows my father and my brother (and my dog).  It's the same with her family and I.  I've even been on vacation with them...her mom has even gone so far as to say I'm the only one of her friends that are welcome on vacation with them anytime!!  My line sister in greek terms, my friend in layman's terms, but really just an extended family (her and hers).    The day she told me she was expecting was the day I told her I was leaving.  It's been difficult, not being there physically.  It's not how I envisioned it happening when one of us was in this position.  Before I left I was able to go to one of her earlier appointments with her...I got to hear the baby's heartbeat.  But it makes me sad that aside from that, I missed all her pregnancy moments.  I never felt my niece kicking around in there...or got to talk to her through her mommy's belly.  It makes me sad because I know I can never get those moments back.  I do believe everything happens for a reason, and I guess I was supposed to be here, while she was back in NY letting the baby cook...but that doesn't make it any easier.

Yesterday they induced her labor.  And being thousands of miles away hit me like an emotional ton of bricks.  I'm pretty impatient by nature...so being so far, and not being able to be there to see them both, and know they're both ok made for a pretty nerve-wracking day.  Finally, this morning, at 740am EST, my beautiful niece, Analiese, made her arrival into this world.  I'm not easily brought to tears, but I admit I shed some as I looked at her pic and realized that it would be months before I got to see her in person, and hold her.  The most difficult part about moving away from everyone you love is that you miss moments you'd never miss otherwise.  There's not many people in my life that I would go and sit at the hospital for as they were in labor...simply because I don't keep many that close to me.  But in this case I know I would've been there.  And in every way I could be there, I was.

I can't wait to fill the blank space with a picture of us, and baby girl: