My niece was born Fri­day, August 24, 2007…2 months ahead of sched­ule. You see, her actual due date was Octo­ber 27th. She is a beau­ti­ful lit­tle thing that was born at a very low birth weight — 1lb. 8oz.  As small as some of your hands!

With her entry into the world, we learned some­thing new as we gath­ered at the hos­pi­tal to await her fate.  While wait­ing to see her for the first time, one of the staff nurses turned to us and said:  “The baby will be fine”.  At first, we fig­ured that was some­thing she was say­ing to keep us hope­ful and in pos­i­tive spir­its.  How­ever, she con­tin­ued with: “Do you know what you guys have? You have a Black GIRL.  She has the high­est sur­viv­abil­ity rate of all pre­ma­ture babies no mat­ter race or gen­der”.  Tears welled up.  None of us had ever heard this before.

In that moment, I thought to myself: “Look what we come from”. God cre­ated US to sur­vive the great­est odds.  So, even in our pre­ma­ture state, we have been gifted with the abil­ity to endure — even when it appears that the odds are stacked against us. WE need to own this…WE need to make it matter.

This was a new les­son learned at the time of Nazyia’s birth.  Imag­ine how many remain unaware. The word must be spread because this could very well be what we have needed the whole time to rec­og­nize exactly what we are made of.

WE are Black women and the odds are in our favor.  There is noth­ing we can’t over­come.  We are Cre­ated to Sur­vive — WE are Des­tined to Thrive!

Wel­come & Enjoy!

Traci L. Lee, Editor-in-Chief