If you've been wondering about Elise Armacost, who left this page a few weeks ago for a six-month maternity leave, I can report that at last she has had her baby.
Although Elise never misses a deadline, her daughter did not inherit the same flair for punctuality. Juliet Anne arrived on Tuesday -- exactly three weeks overdue. This little girl has a promising future with the Baltimore post office.
In The Sun's Anne Arundel County bureau, we're relieved this baby has finally been born. We've been anticipating her arrival for months now and talking about the changes she will bring.
The birth of a baby is one of those rare events, which immediately transforms the lives it touches; a woman and a man suddenly become a mother and a father.
We have a few other milestones to mark the passages in our lives -- first communions or bar mitzvahs, driver's licenses, graduation ceremonies, weddings -- but none bring such dramatic and lasting changes as the birth of a child.
Most of the time we simply go about our lives scarcely noticing that we're growing older until we pause to celebrate one of these milestones and then realize how far we've come.
Looking back, I can recognize the passages of my life when I remember the conversations I've had with girlfriends throughout the years.
Twenty years ago, we were pouring over teen magazines Tiger Beat and 16 and dreamily recounting each romantic incident featured on "Starsky and Hutch" (does anyone even remember that show?).
Our "boyfriends" were high school jocks whom we fantasized about but dared not even speak to. We were willing to surrender these unrequited loves for the sake of friendship. I remember giving up my designs on one basketball player because my best friend had a worse crush on him than I did.
Somehow, we eventually got up the courage to speak to boys, and even learned the rudiments of flirting. This step generally required us to lower our sights a bit. The first boy I allowed to hold my hand was not a basketball star, but a chubby boy who was in the Future Farmers of America.
My girlfriends and I by then were sharing stories of our escorted dates to homecoming dances, and we unmercifully assessed the physical and mental attributes of our suitors.
As we grew older, the relationships grew more serious, and we dropped the first hints about the possibility of marriage. Only one of my friends married while she was still in college and I remember mourning her loss in our single sisterhood.
For most of us, marriage was still many broken and battered hearts away. We commiserated and supported each other through one tearful break-up after another.
Then slowly, almost imperceptibly, the relationships began to improve and our conversations turned to wedding dresses and reception halls. Within a spate of just a few years, nearly all my friends and colleagues married.
The first few years of married life didn't seem to bring too much interesting to talk about, but the conversation has perked up now that my girlfriends and colleagues are starting to think about having children.
Elise's new baby is a pointed reminder that we are entering a new phase of life -- one characterized by conversations of epidurals and breast pumps.
Many of us who don't already have children are trying to. We're talking about pregnancy kits and temperature charts. We share stories about the latest humiliations from prying families or nosy acquaintances who demand to know when we are going to have babies. We talk about the unsolicited advice we've been given on how to conceive and the best response to whispered suggestions that we ought to think about seeing a doctor.
The moms, the moms-to-be and the moms-who-hope-to-be all find a common language in the familiar debate about balancing families with careers.
We ponder over how much time to take for maternity leave and agonize over whether we'll be able to do our jobs once we're faced with the demands of newborns. Even those of us who cannot find comforting answers to these questions nevertheless continue to plan for children, swept toward motherhood by a complex mixture of tradition and nature.
It won't be long before the conversations will take a different turn.
We'll go from talking about pregnancy kits to the best infant formula, and soon enough to the best pre-school. And after that we'll discuss our children's academic and sports accomplishments.
Then before you know it, one day we'll overhear our daughters talking to their friends about some dreamy-eyed, baby-faced boy featured in the latest issue of Tiger Beat.
Liz Atwood is The Baltimore Sun's editorial writer in Anne Arundel County.