Welcome to the World, Lily Grace
Lily Grace Carter was born on Friday, March 14, 2025, at 6:42 in the morning. She weighed 7 pounds, 4 ounces, and she was 20 inches long.
It had been nearly ten hours since that first contraction at home. Then, all at once, there was a cry. It was loud and a little bit angry, and it was the most beautiful sound I have ever heard.
Nurse Angela called out the time. They laid her on my chest, warm and wiggly and so small, and the crying stopped. She knew my voice. I am sure of it. Michael’s hands were shaking, but he cut the cord.
She had a full head of brown hair, just like her daddy’s, and ten perfect fingers. One of them wrapped around mine and would not let go.
Michael leaned down and whispered, “Hello, Lily Grace.” We had said her name to my belly a hundred times, but this was the first time we said it to her face.
Outside, the sky was just turning from black to gray over the snow. Michael put one hand on her back and one on mine, and we thanked God together, right there. We had prayed for this little girl for so long. And here she was.
From Dad's Notebook
My hands don’t shake. Fourteen years of saws and chisels, and they have never once shaken on a job. They shook this morning when Angela handed me those scissors.
Every carpenter knows the rule: measure twice, cut once. Well, I got it backwards today. I made my one cut first. Then, when they put Lily on the scale, I asked Angela if she would measure her one more time, just to be sure. She laughed and did it. Seven pounds, four ounces. Twenty inches on the nose. Both times.
One more thing for the notebook. She was born on March 14. That’s 3/14, Pi Day. Sarah rolled her eyes when I said it, but a carpenter’s daughter showing up on a day named for a number? I’ll take it.
When they handed her to me, she opened one eye and looked right up at me. I don’t know what she saw. I know what I saw. The best thing God has ever trusted me with.
— Dad
Saying Your Name Out Loud
Lily, we picked your name months before you came. We said it to each other at the supper table. I whispered it to my belly at night. But it felt brand new the first time we said it to you.
Lily Grace. I have said it a thousand times since. Every time I say Grace, I think about that morning. We didn’t earn you. You were a gift, start to finish.
Before he even sat down, your daddy called Nana Linda. She was home sick with a cold and heartbroken about it. She made him hold the phone right up to you so she could hear you breathe. We could hear her crying clear across the room. Happy crying. The very best kind.
A little later, Grandma Ruth and Grandpa Joe came in from the waiting room, with Aunt Emily right behind them. They had been out there all night in those hard chairs, and they looked it. Grandpa Joe took one look at you and had to sit down. Grandma Ruth said, “Oh, Sarah. She’s perfect,” and then she couldn’t say anything else.
A Prayer of Thanks
This is the prayer your daddy prayed with his hand on your back, as close as I can remember it:
“Lord, thank You. Thank You for bringing her here safe, and for keeping Sarah safe. Thank You for every one of these little fingers. She is Yours before she is ours. Help us raise her to know You. Amen.”
I didn’t pray anything that fancy. I just kept whispering “thank You” over and over, with my cheek against the top of your head, while you held on to my finger.
That afternoon, Grandma Ruth tucked a little card into your hospital bassinet. On it, in her careful handwriting, was a verse: “Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD.” That’s Psalm 127:3. She told me she had written the very same verse on a card for my bassinet in 1994.
We still have both cards, side by side in the top drawer of your dresser.
