My daughter is 18 at midnight

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It is 8:30PM in California, which means I have 3 and a half hours before my oldest daughter becomes an adult. She will be my second adult child. I can't believe how quickly the time has gone. Tuesday I took her to get a pedicure and it felt like we were becoming friends. It has been a rough couple of years. The power struggle has been real! I see a lot of myself in her, and sometimes that is hard to watch her, especially when she is in pain. I am so glad that she finally made it through her high school years. They were very trying and required lots of therapy and medication. She graduated high school with many, many honors and lots of college credit last month, and in September she is heading to Stanford University. She is on the right path and I am proud of the young woman she has become. I will never forget that early June morning when I went into labor in 2000. After she was born, her blood sugar dropped and they had to take her from me. I went to the postpartum room, utterly exhausted from a rough delivery. When I woke up, she still wasn't there, and I panicked. I gused my IV as a crutch as I pulled myself down the hallway in so much pain, I could hardly stand it. I had a ton of stitches and I felt like my insides were going to fall out. I made my way down the hall and looked in every room until I came to the nursery. I could hear the radio playing "In Your Eyes" by Peter Gabriel, a song that I always sang to her in utero and it brought me to tears. I saw two nurses bathing a sweet little baby, and they noticed me crying.One of them came over to me and helped me sit down and asked if that was my baby. I couldn't speak, but nodded. They assured me that she was fine, nothing a little sugar water couldn't fix, and they were cleaning her up for me and letting me get some rest before bringing her to me. That day was one of the best, and hardest days of my life and I am so proud of how far we have come together. Happy 18th Birthday to my beautiful Ariana (Ari) Elise.