I haven't been very forthcoming. This is harder to write each time I have to. So, forgive me not including this information here until now.

I was slapped into the hospital for a day, the OB/GYN looking for the cause of what they call "abnormal bleeding." It wasn't a fun day, but there was fun in it. Just scroll down to read my previous post.

However, the diagnosis is endometriol cancer. My baby-making stuff has to come out in order to cure me.

I feel ambivalent about this. In some ways, I saw this coming. Not just in the psychic way, although that minor talent I have comes into play. No, the real problem, as I see it, is that I just didn't get a chance to have a baby with my husband. It's not our fault that we didn't find each other earlier. Really, how can it be. He can't help being born when he is anymore than I can help being born when I was.

I would have liked the chance, though.

So here is the one thing I want and will never have:

Theres Kate Victoria Richards. We'd call her Tessie. She'd be small at birth, just a little. Only about 6 or so pounds. Cinnamon hair in small tufts will lighten in the next few days to a very white-blonde color. To her Daddy's disgust, she'll have his nose and he'll go on about how the poor thing looks like him. I'll point out the Brooke Hogan looks like her Daddy and is pretty as any model, only she's not skinny. She won't cry a lot, and soon she'll wake with laughing--when she can laugh that is.

At some point she'll discover she can see things around her and her eyes will settle into being a sort of mood ring--green when she's mad, blue when she's happy and gray just about any other time of the day.

She will think outside the box. And when she sees Daddy and Mommy reading, she'll practice in private even before she talks well enough to make a good conversation.

She'll be dedicated before the gods and in the old ways, but only till she finds her own path. My husband's best friend and my best friend will be her God-parents.

She'll climb out of her crib to try to find her stepbrother, Brandon. Though she won't be able to climb into his bed. She wouldn't be able to climb the steps.

She'll wet her bed till she's four, but she won't enjoy it. Someday, I'll buy her just the right bright sheets and she'll suddenly stop because the sheets are too pretty to mess up.

I'll catch her on the counter one Saturday morning, eating out of the sugar cannister. She'll get upset when I tell her that's Splenda(R) and not real sugar.

When she's five she'll walk around for a week murmuring under her breath, "I'm FIVE! I'm FIVE YEARS OLD!" Just so she can believe it.

She'll be bored with school and we'll have to tell her what it's for. It'll be abstract for her, and she'll want to just leave. Yet, she'll soak up the knowledge like a proverbial sponge. She'll do math better than she wants to and be frustrated with her language skills because they aren't up to Mommy and Daddy's level.

She'll wonder why Brandon has a different Mommy but the same Daddy.

She'll touch people a lot, but I won't tell her not to unless people are bothered. Like me, she'll know more of a person from being near them and touching a hand than a dozen conversations about next to nothing.

When she's 6 she'll be trying to read high school level books. And Mommy and Daddy will have to tell her that the romance and horror books are off limits for now, not because they're hard, but because they're PG-13. This will make her cross, but she'll eventually understand.

She'll want to do odd things, like make the adults an Easter Egg hunt, or play Santa.

She'll think Mommy's religion is neat but hate the beer.

One day, when she's 7 or 8, she'll pick up my runes without permission and lose the Othilia rune. I'll give her that as a holy name when she becomes a woman.

Her hair will start to darken into a coppery blonde as she becomes 9 and 10. Other girls will be into stories about horses and such. She'll have discovered science fiction and read it voraciously.

She'll love Star Wars best.

She won't know what to make of fads, mostly because her parents will approve of just about everything. So, when she comes home with the latest pop teen diva's CD and have a craving for more grown up shoes and hair and make-up, she's going to find that her parents will ask if she wants to dye her hair pink and get a henna tattoo to go with it.

She will have no fight with her mother over piercing her ears or anything else. Only that she has to prove she can keep the area clean on her own for at least three months before I'll consider such a grown up step.

She'll catch on to when her first period is coming but she won't like it. That is, until she realizes Mommy and Daddy are treating her with a little more respect and guiding her, but not making all her decisions. We'll also explain that her life is now hers to decide, so she'd better figure out what she wants to do. We'd encourage Tessie to try some of the things she likes.

Well, Ashe will. I'm not sure I really want her trying to be a wrestler, but ... as long as she's in a wrestling school that will teach her and not harm her, I'll just make sure she's kept healthy.

She'll try writing, too, and like it. She'll even take a stab at singing and at filmmaking. Her friends will come over one day and hole up in her room as they make a music video with one of Daddy's cameras to her favorite song. It'll be decent and Daddy will encourage her to put it on the net. It gets some attention, but, she decides she wants to do something more active.

She joins little league and kicks butt. In fact, she will decide that she's going to try to be the first woman player in the major leagues. And not just on any team, the team Daddy, Mommy, and Papa Dan all love--the Atlanta Braves.

Tessie just might have done it, too. She's feisty enough and is bold. She's not going to let the obstacles bother her because she can see through to the end of it all.

She'll look all girly, though, when Mommy sneaks her into the hairdresser and buys her a fancy dress the year Daddy is nominated for an Oscar(R). She'll go to the ceremony, against Daddy's original wishes. He won't protest, though. When his name is announced, knowing that only one person can win, she'll kiss his cheek and tell him, "I'm proud of you, Daddy."

From that point I never imagined any more. I know she'd date, have the usual ups and downs of being a teen. She'd be faced with a very much older mother who was sympathetic and a father who would sit on the front porch polishing his sword whenever a guy came by to take her out. Tessie would beg mom to slip the guy in the back door. Mom would fold like a house of cards.

I have no clue if she'd get married or not. I don't think it matters much to me at this stage. While she's in my imagination--and must stay there for the rest of my life--she can stay ten years old.

Good-bye Theres Kate Victoria Richards. I would have loved to have met you.