Happy birthday, Summer Dawn

Today my daughter turns 12, an age she's wanted to be for years!! Just about my height, she's going to be quite tall when she stops growing. A fascinating person, this 12-yr-old. The year before she was born, dealing with the devastating effects of a miscarriage, I consulted an astrologer. Having made no reference to what had happened a few months before, I was blown away when she said, "I see a daughter for you". In that same reading, she said that I would also travel abroad the following year. It was only after I'd come back from my first-ever overseas trip, in mid-1998, and given birth to Summer in November that year, that I recalled the astrologer's words. Thirteen years later, I still have contact with that astrologer, and she's an amazing person. She relocated from Johannesburg to Cape Town and now lives a few suburbs away from me. Her accurate readings have continued over the years, and I have a lot of respect for her. She's counselled me through many different experiences over the years, and I admire the way she chooses her words. Often, only after I've experienced something do I realise that she had alluded to it without spelling it out.

But, back to Summer. I remember getting to the 40th week of my pregnancy and feeling I couldn't last another day. I started panicking at the thought of being pregnant for 41 or 42 weeks, because I was so heavy and the baby wasn't descending, and so I opted for an induction. To fit in with the doctor's timetable, I booked into Constantiaberg Medi-Clinic at 3am on a Monday, and my baby was born at 09h20. Something went horribly wrong with the epidural (a rushed job, to fit in with anaesthetist's surgery schedule!), my body went into some kind of shock reaction, and I had to have a C-section under general anaesthetic! I'll never forget the panic in the delivery room when the baby's heartbeat started becoming faint. Not an experience I'd wish on anybody!

I woke up in the recovery room at 11:00, and drifted in and out of consciousness til 11:30, when a friend who worked at the hospital came to tell me I'd had a daughter! A few minutes later, I was wheeled past my then-husband, who also told me excitedly that we'd had a daughter; I couldn't talk, but I touched my hair, asking wordlessly what any brunette would ask at the birth of her second child, when the first one was a redhead. "Another redhead!" he said, barely concealing his delight. I saw my daughter for the first time just after 11:30, two hours after her birth, and it was like dejavu - she looked exactly like her brother had looked, 4 years earlier! I held her in my arms and fed her, and I felt the most surprising feeling - that I had achieved one of my most important things in my life! I had given birth to a daughter!What a wonderful feeling after having had a son - it felt like the ultimate blessing to have one of each.

That was a curious time of my life. With Summer's arrival, I used to say our home had "three Sagittarians and one vegetarian"!

This little girl has had quite a life, with her parents splitting just before her 2nd birthday, and she's turned into a fiery, fiesty young person, with strong opinions and convictions, and a wonderful gift for languages. She's also got a great eye for photographs and has spent the past year saving up for her very first serious camera, which she's planning to buy for Christmas.

Her dream careers over the years have gone from bus driver to egg slicer, teacher to singer, and most recently, to photo-journalist. She's decided she's going to Rhodes University and then she's going to travel all round the world taking photos and writing. About to enter Grade 7, she's got 6 more years of schooling ahead, during which so much could happen.

I'm incredibly proud of my daughter. She's very witty and has sharp critical faculties. Her sense of humour, evident from a young age, has grown over the years, and she's able to describe and imitate like a regular stand-up comic. Far more confident than I was at that age, she's got a future ahead that I sincerely hope I'm around to witness.

She's one of the most musical people I know, with so much natural talent, it constantly takes me by surprise. She took violin lessons for four years, then decided to change to the piano! She sang in their school choir for four years, too. She sings like a nightingale and has an amazing sense of pitch.

And so, before I go and pick her up at school to spend her birthday afternoon with her, I'd like to send a special thanks to the universe for blessing me with this wonderful little girl. My life has indeed been made a lot more interesting and exciting by her presence.

My wish for her is that she may live her life with all the enthusiasm, curiosity and fun she currently has, as a 12-yr-old, and that she may never compromise on her sense of self-worth, never sell herself short or dumb down to please anyone, but soar like the eagle she is, living life with joy and love.

I accepted long ago that Sagittarians have a very strong sense of adventure - I've trained myself to say all the goodbyes that inevitably go with redheaded Sags! ;-)