20/02/2026
Willow Rebecca-Julia Walters.
Born July 4, 2021, Willow was supposed to peacefully enter the world in a birth pool at home. Instead, our firey girl was already showcasing her rambunctious spirit by changing up the welcoming plans. We transferred to hospital when she went into distress after Mama's water had been ruptured for over 24hrs. Our midwife was a champ in handling both Mama and baby's stubbornness to have little intervention. However, this stubbornness didn't prevent baby from needing some help breathing once born.
After 30 minutes of pushing, baby came and Daddy quietly said that baby was a girl. A sensitive discovery, as we had intentionally avoided finding out baby's gender during pregnancy. For those who don't know, Kay is a former foster child with an incredibly turbulent childhood; a large part of that due to the strained relationship between her and her mother. Her mother was a broken soul with trauma of her own. Instead of working through that to transform it, the hurt and anger was instead transmitted onto Kay. It manifested in a lot of physical and psychological abuse where she was sometimes kept from school to hide the results of these rageful episodes. This being Kay's only experience with a mother-daughter relationship had Kay carrying immense fear of being a girl mum - she didn't want to continue that cycle of abuse. But the instant baby was laid on her chest, that fear completely disappeared. Sol was able to capture this tender moment on video, and it's one of Kay's most treasured memories.
Pictures were taken of the placenta, as Mama is fascinated by all things pregnancy-related, and baby had a 2 vessel umbellical cord and valementous cord insertion - both of which are now considered "soft signs" of something genetic having gone awry.
Willow was the name chosen, as it was incredibly meaningful to our walks through life. Having both her parents come from toxic origin families, who's people had enabled unhealthy, toxic cycles to thrive from unhealthy, abusive people, we felt that Willow, a tree that could push roots with having a single broken branch stuck into soil and begin an entirely new legacy independent from the tree in which it came from, was serendipitous. Her middle names were easy choices. Rebecca, after Kay's lifelong favourite person in the world, her grandmother. Julia after Sol's unofficially adoptive mother - a treasured woman who chose to stand in a gap that never should've been. The names of 2 beautiful souls felt fitting to give to such a precious new life. Sol also loved how Willow Walters rolls off the tongue. "It sounds like a superhero name," is the sentence he would say in response - and boy, does that ever hit home now.
And while we adore her name and use it often, you will also hear her affectionately referred to as "Miss Ma'am" - a nickname given when we were still measuring her age in weeks, but are uncertain now how it came about.
This is Miss Ma'am. Willow Walters. Wondrous Willow. Please remember her.
