Dear Tess,

When I was 38.5 weeks pregnant with you, I wrote you this letter. I wrote one to your brother when I was at the same stage with him, and I wanted to make sure I did the same for you. Now here we are and you're a whole year old. What a year it's been my sweet, beautiful girl. Where do I start? How about the night you were born.

I was sitting on the couch watching "Driving Miss Daisy" when I started to feel labor pains. It was a Monday night, you were due on Friday and I had sobbed to your daddy earlier that day when he called to check in that I couldn't take another minute of being pregnant. I felt enormous and uncomfortable and I couldn't catch a full breath. When I started to feel bands of tightness in my lower stomach, I felt cautiously optimist, thinking this could be it. It was also a relief to stop watching "Driving Miss Daisy," as I'm pretty sure it's the slowest movie ever made.

Your daddy was working as an associate at his first law firm when I was pregnant with you and he did a lot of drafting late at night. He often pulled all-nighters to put a dent in the crushing amount of work it seemed he always had due. I'd wake up in the middle of the night and realize that he'd never come to bed.

The nights leading up to your birth were no different. He had pulled a series of all-nighters to finish a big appellate brief and I was worried that when I went into labor with you he'd be too tired to make it through. We'd been up for three days straight when I was in labor with your brother. We should have known that you'd be different.

When I told your daddy I thought I was in labor he jumped up from the dining room table, snapped his laptop shut and went straight to bed, trying to grab a nap before we had to head to the hospital. No such luck. Within an hour I was on my hands and knees, rocking back and forth to ease the pain of the contractions and telling him to call his Aunt Rita to come over to take care of Owen, who was asleep in the next room.

It was midnight and given that I was 10 centimeters dilated when I finally went to the hospital with your brother, I wasn't taking any chances. I had heard from many mothers that the second baby comes more quickly. One friend nearly had her second child in the lobby of Northwestern Hospital as they were checking her in. She kept telling them she didn't have time to answer all their questions and they didn't stop and look up from their paperwork until she started to push, right there in the waiting room.

It's a funny thing when you're in labor. It's an all-consuming, urgent experience for you, but for the hospital staff, it's just another day at work. They could not be more unimpressed with the fact that you are about to bring another human being into the world. And that it hurts. A lot.

I remember how surreal it was when your daddy dropped me off in front of the hospital to go park when I was in the throes of active labor with Owen. I took the elevator to the labor and delivery floor, then picked up the red phone outside the locked ward. A voice came on, "Yes?" I informed the voice I was in labor. "Okay, come on in."

The doors popped open and I walked down the longest, loneliest corridor in the history of hospitals to the nurses' station, where two attendants were engrossed in their computer screens. Finally, like I was waiting my turn at the register at Macy's, one of them looked up. "Yes, can I help you?" Um, yes, I'm pretty sure you can.

When we got to the hospital with you, they took us into a triage room right away. The nurse was welcoming and friendly. An episode of "Law & Order" was playing on the TV on the wall in front of the hospital bed, where I tried to find a comfortable position with my heaving belly and bunched up backless gown. I looked over at Daddy and he was staring at the TV screen with a dazed look on his face. He saw me watching him.

"What?" he asked.

I gave him a look. "You're going to fall asleep."

"No I'm not," he said. "I'm getting my second wind."

"Right."

I turned my attention to the triage nurse. "How many centimeters do I have to be for you to keep me here?" I asked. She answered something noncommital. I think all medical professionals are trained to respond to every patient's questions with, "Let's wait and see." But then she checked me.

"You're five centimeters," she said. "We're definitely keeping you." Thank God. This is it.

At first I said I wasn't going to need an epidural because I'd had my first child without one. The triage nurse radioed up to someone on the delivery floor that they could wait on getting the room ready for me as I would labor longer there. But halfway through another episode of "Law & Order," I changed my mind. The contractions started coming faster and harder, a ripping, burning pain that made me yell out.  If I had a headache, I'd take an asprin, so why wouldn't I take something for childbirth? 

"I think I would like that epidural after all," I said.

We waited for what seemed like forever for the triage nurse to come back and take us up to the delivery floor. Finally she appeared with a wheelchair and rushed me to the elevators with Daddy galloping behind as I yelled through each contraction, my "vocalization" echoing through the long, deserted halls. It must have been 2 a.m.

We arrived at a labor and delivery room, where Ashley, my labor nurse, was waiting for us, pushing her hair into a surgical cap. There were no TVs in here. No long list of questions. This was a room where women got down business.

But there was a couch. And as expected, Daddy disappeared. I felt oddly okay about it because I had Ashley, who approached her job like a joint endeavor. Then the anesthesiologist walked in, one of the most handsome men I'd ever seen. This was clearly someone who could make all the pain go away. "He must be the most popular guy in the entire hospital," I told Ashley as she held my shoulders while I leaned forward so he could insert a long needle in my lower back. She laughed.

I progressed quickly. The resident came in and checked me. I was 8 centimeters. Then 9. I could see the contractions on the monitor but I didn't feel a thing. They radioed the doctor on call from my OB's office and she barely made it in time. Two pushes and you were out. No joke. Right before I started to push, Daddy magically appeared by my side. He later told me a nurse had woken him up.

When they handed you to me, we were shocked. We looked at each other, both thinking the same thing. "She's beautiful," we whispered to each other. When Owen arrived, he had looked swollen and beat up. You benefited from that long road trip. He had already stretched out the highway, allowing you to cruise along in the fast lane, sailing through the off ramp with nary a mark. Labor? What labor?

Since that day, you've only grown more beautiful, as if that were possible. You have striking blue eyes, long eyelashes, a button nose and tulip-shaped lips. You also have the softest, most kissable, perfectly shaped head. It's a good thing, because at 1 year old, you're still nearly bald. Yet somehow, like Sinead O'Connor, you pull it off. That and your toothless grin. Yep, still no teeth, despite months of sucking on everything in sight. I'm told through the family grapevine that the Zwaska boys got their teeth late.

The most striking thing about you is that you seemed to have a sense of contentment right from the start. You are someone who can just hang out. Whenever you cried there was a reason, like a multiple choice test: wet, hungry or tired. The moment we addressed the problem, you settled down. What you really liked in those early days was being held. When Grandma came from L.A. to take care of you the first month I went back to work, she watched the entire PBS series on the Roosevelt family with you sleeping on her chest. If you end up having a fascination with the FDR presidential years, we'll know why.

Your brother had mixed feelings about your arrival. At school, his teacher would tell me he talked incessantly about "Baby Tessa." At home he threw Category 5 tantrums whenever I held you and tried to sit on you and tear you from my arms. I felt sympathetic and distraught, being the firstborn myself, but also protective of your limbs. It was rough going for the first four months. Now he seems to have accepted your place in the world. "Mama, Dada, Owen, Tessa. That's my family," he tells me.

That doesn't always stop him from screaming when you grab one of his trains or pushing you over when you're standing in the middle of the room minding your own business, slightly weaving and wobbly on your newfound legs. But we're getting there.

Despite your easygoing nature, you're by no means a shrinking violet. You are clear about what you do and do not want. When you're done with your bottle, you're done. If I try to put it back in your mouth you bat it away, sometimes so hard it flies onto the floor. If you want my phone or keys, you'll keep grabbing at them after I move them multiple times, even across the room. There's no stopping you when you're determined. It's a perseverance that can make parenting exhausting, but a personality trait I know will serve you well.

You took your first steps on Mother's Day, more than three weeks before your first birthday. I knew it was coming because you kept doing odd-looking baby headstands on the living room floor. You would prop yourself up on your head and feet, bending at the waist into an upside down "V." Then using your head as leverage, you would push up through your legs to a standing position. It's one of the more impressive yoga moves I've ever seen. That's one way to do it, I thought as I watched you do it over and over again the day before you walked, working with your body to find the right balance, then slowly rising to your feet. 

My favorite time with you these days is our bedtime ritual, when I feed you, lying in the dark with the white noise machine humming softly. I sit against our headboard, propped up with pillows and your warm body cradled in my lap. My mind wanders as you lean into me and drink your bottle. I rub my hand across the top of your head, playing with the soft fuzz of your hair. I run my finger tips down your baby soft legs and cup your pudgy feet as you flex them against the palm of my hand.

It's in these moments that I wish you'd always stay little, that you never grow hair or lose the roll of fat above your knees. It's the time when you're my Tessie and we're the only two people in the world. Happy birthday sweet girl. And many more.

 Love,
Mama