I could explain to you the details of the miracle of my eldest daughter's birth in the explicit details I've used for almost every other moment of my life, but I'm sure that if I did, the rating of this story would jump up to ages much higher than most of the people reading this right now. That said, I'll let you know ahead of time that this version is considerably watered down from what actually happened, before we go on to the actual event.

Needless to say, when I was forcing myself to stay calm through growing pain, driving myself to the hospital wasn't exactly an option. Fortunately, I was able to make my way to the backstage area and flag down my old friend Lela. She was still technically my coordinator, but inbetween my events (since they were fairly scattered), she worked with JACK as a coordinator consultant.

Anyway, when I informed her of my situation (mostly by screaming incoherently), she was remarkably quick to drop the piles of clothing she was holding into JACK's manager's hands and run out the stadium doors to go get her car so she could drive me.

She was freaking out more than I was, I swear. Telling me that I needed to breathe, that she was calling the hospital, and my husband (even though he was, at the time, on tour in Taiwan), and that everything was going to be fine. I probably would have thought it was funny if I could focus on anything aside from these weird shudders going through my whole body that started okay and ended in excrutiating pain. 

What felt like eternity but was probably only about ten minutes later (would have been five if Lela had kept speeding the way she'd started doing, before I reminded her that one of my best friends had literally died in a car accident, and that my baby could wait in order to preserve lives), we were in the hospital, a whole bunch of nurses also panicking a whole bunch about birthing from a celebrity.

I think I made some kind of comment that celebrities come from bloody holes, just like everyone else. I remember Lela having some kind of breakdown where she was hyperventilating and laughing at the same time, which sounded hilarious, I'm telling you. I was afraid she was going to faint from lack of oxygen. 

Of course, I make it sound like I was chill about the whole thing, and handled everything like a champ. That is totally not true. Keep in mind that I'm holding back on the gruesome details. Because let's face it-- there are no "images" to keep in childbirth. You do everything you can to just squeeze a child through a very small hole, and you look like crap doing it. Don't believe ANY Hollywood movie that glorifies childbirth. Because I certify to you that it is 100% horrible and not beautiful or elegant at all.

"Okay, now I'm going to need you to push," the doctor was saying.

"Mrs. Zhou, your husband says that if he leaves his concert he can be here in a few hours," one of the nurses said, running into the room.

"Tell him that if he leaves the ELF behind for this, I will hurt him so much that he will understand how much pain I am in right now!" I screamed, and her eyes went wide and she ran out of the room, presumably to deliver the news. Except that she was shouting to someone else.

"She says not to worry about her-- take care of himself!"

I think I was on enough painkillers that I was a little bit loopy at all of the wrong times. I don't even remember half of the things I said, but apparently they were hilarious. But it's one hell of a story to tell my daughter when she grew up. That I gave birth to her with laughter. I'll probably leave out the part about me swearing in five languages and being loopy from drugs.

And then suddenly it was over. I was crying. Lela was crying. Min Hee, who had arrived some point in the four hours of labor and had allowed me to crush her fingers while I held her hand, was also crying. I watched, fascinated, while the doctor cut the umbilical cord and tied it into a cute little knot that would turn into her adorable little belly button. I watched the doctors carry her over to me and set her into my arms.

Tears ran down my cheeks as I looked down at her and said, "God, Jung Ah-eonni... she's so ugly."

The nurses looked at me in horror, but Min Hee and Lela were laughing through tears. 

Newborn babies are not beautiful. They are pink, and wrinkly, and look like little worms. I had never seen anything more amazing in my life.

She wiggled in my arms, grumbling a little.

The doctor wiped sweat off of her forehead and smiled down at me. "A healthy baby girl. Despite everything, there were no problems. I have to say, I didn't think much of you when you first came to Korea, Queen Be. But these past few years, I think I learned to respect you. You are much stronger than I gave you credit for. And your daughter's the proof. Are you going to name her?"

"Sora. So-Ra Zhou. My little piece of heaven."

"That's a beautiful name."

Min Hee hugged me around the little pink worm, and continued to cry. "Oh good god, Mel, how could you say your own daughter's ugly?!"

"Oh, she's wonderful. Doesn't mean she's not ugly." I felt utterly exhausted, but wanted to keep holding her. "But just look at my daughter, Min Hee! Look at her! I don't care if she's ugly-- she's a survival story. Not even a few minutes old and I'm already proud of her."

Lela ran out of the room, probably unable to hold herself together any longer. 

I Sora's head, then let her tiny little hand grab ahold of my finger. "She's so quiet. She's not going to be like me at all, I can already tell."

Min Hee pulled a tissue from her bag and used it to wipe my face. "Oh really? How's that?"

"Oh, Min Hee. I was born kicking and screaming. Causing all kinds of problems for my poor mother. And I stayed that way for the rest of my life."

The nurses told me to let them take the baby to the nursery, so I could rest, but I shook my head. "She's not going to see a male soul until her father gets here. Even if that's another baby."

They eventually agreed, but only after "teaching" me the proper way to feed her. I already knew the proper way to feed her. I'd been taking classes about childcare. I learned about it from all of my parents. I wanted to make sure my daughter got the best out of life.

They even let me use my phone to call Zhou Mi, since it was such a special case, with him being so far away and all. 

"The plane just landed in Incheon. I'll be there as soon as I can, okay?"

"Mimi, you have a daughter."

"W-what? It's over?!"

"It's over," I repeated, watching my daughter go to sleep, nestled against me. "She's going to sleep now."

"Was everything okay?! Did anything go wrong?! You weren't there by yourself, were you?!"

I laughed. "Of course not. Lela drove me here, and Min Hee came pretty quickly. Though... I think I may have broken one or two of her fingers..."

"Oh, they're fine. Nothing to worry about. You just get your arse here as fast as you possibly can, do you understand, Zhou Mi?!" Min Hee demanded.

"I understand, Miss Min Hee. I'm getting in the car now. I need to go, Niuwang."

I smiled, falling back against my pillow. "I know, Mimi. I know."

I hung up the phone at the same moment that Lela came back in the room. "I'm really sorry, Minsung. I have to go back to the concert. I'm sorry I was freaking out a bit. I'm not really used to..."

I shook my head, feeling more and more tired with each moment. "No, Lela, it's fine. You were amazing. Thank you."

"For what?"

"For driving me all the way here. Couldn't have done it without you."

She hugged me, then left.

I looked at Min Hee through half-closed eyelids. "What about you, Blue Raz? You don't have to stay."

She shrugged. "I figure I'll stay here until your Mimi comes. Then I'll get out of the way of the lovebirds and their egg."

I snorted a laugh, feeling myself drift away, my baby daughter in my arms. 

"She's ours?!" Zhou Mi asked, scooping her into his arms. He'd arrived only minutes before, waking me up. True to her word, Min Hee had left as soon as he'd come, with nothing but a "cheerio" and a piece of candy.

"Unless they switched her out with another baby girl while they were taking her out, I'm pretty sure."

"And I wasn't even here..."

"It's fine. Really. She came a few weeks early. And you have to keep your popularity up. For the group. I don't think she blames you."

He looked down at the little pink worm in his arms, and his expression relaxed. "She's so tiny..."

"Three-thousand-thirty grams. Actually not a small baby."

"But- but... she really came from you?"

"Shocking, I know."

"I can't even believe it."

He sat down on the bed, still cradling his daughter in his arms. I smiled at him, still tired. "You'd believe it if you were here to see it. Apparently I was constantly either screaming or saying really horrible jokes."

"Oh I wish I could have seen that."

I kissed him, then looked down as Sora started crying.

"Uh-oh..." he remarked.

I shrugged. "So it begins."

 Sora was a very sleepy baby. Then again, she'd probably exhausted herself in my womb, just trying to stay alive. But, of course, there were times that she just exploded in tears, like every other baby. There was feeding, and diapers (I used cloth diapers, because they were more environtmental-friendly. Mimi prefered the paper diapers), and sleeping, and loud noise, and then there was the media.

Everyone wanted to see our new baby. I brought her to the company after I was released from the hospital, and everyone freaked out. All of the ladies of Girls' Generation said that she was cuter than their baby from "Hello Baby". 

"Look at her, her hair is so light! Is she blonde like Minsung?!" Sunny squeaked, holding Sora in her arms. 

"No, she has brown hair. But it's not black, like Mimi's."

Sora seemed to look in awe at the crowd of adult women around her, and wanted to grab the zipper of Sunny's jacket. 

"Awe, look! Look at the color of her eyes! How pretty is that?!" Jessica squealed, leaning in closer. "They're gold!"

I smiled, taking my daughter away from the girls. "It's because she's a mix of Asian and American. She gets all the fun color blends."

They seemed to find this extremely funny, but were, apparently, not ready for me to take my daughter away.

"No, no, Minsung! We want to play with her more!"

"I want to play with her!" Tiffany yelled, enough to startle Sora and make her look up at Tiffany with big eyes.

"Our baby never wanted to play with me," she sighed, smiling down at Sora. "Mel, I need a baby. This is sad. You have one, and you're younger than all of us!"

"Tiffany, you should remember that I married an older man..."

"Oh. Right. Hahaha".

"Okay, now, guys, I'm going to go visit the other people. Like f(x) and JACK and maybe some of the staff.

"But where's her Appa?" Taeyeon asked.

"He had to go back to Taiwan."

"Oh no!"

"Work is work. The show must go on, you know."

"When are they coming back? Don't your oppas want to see their niece?"

"Next week. I hear they're freaking out. I sent pictures, but it's not the same. ANYWAY, I really have to go. And you all have to practice."

Apparently the girls of JACK had been planning on bringing me to the front of the tage after their song, but suddenly, when I was nowhere to be found, they'd freaked out, especially when they heard that Lela had driven me to the hospital because I was going into labor. But all was well, and they simply adored Sora. 

I couldn't go anywhere without photographers wanting to take pictures of Sora. They were so desperate to make her into a star, and she was only a few days old.

"I don't want Sora to be roped into fame just because she's my daughter," I said during an interview. "If she chooses it in the future, then I have no problems with it. But the media might be a little intense for her. I want her to grow up healthy and happy."

When the guys of SJ-M came back from Taiwan, we had a great big event where they declared themselves as her uncles, and they were not to be swayed otherwise.

I pointed at Leeteuk. "Sora-yang. You see that ahjusshi?"

She looked where I was pointing, at Leeteuk, then back at me."

"He's an old man. He's a slimy old man. Don't trust him, okay, Sora? Don't trust him."

"YAH!" He yelled, and basic chaos ensued.

Shockingly enough, Sora seemed to like Heechul. And he softened a lot when I let him hold her. She smiled at him when he played with her, and wanted to pet his hair.

"I'm going to steal her," he declared, even as she was falling asleep.

"No! Hyung! No stealing my daughter!" Zhou Mi yelled, annoyed. 

On the other hand, she didn't seem to like Henry very much, and actually cried when he tried to get closer to her. 

In total, she seemed to love her SM family, even when they were weird and scary. She met SHINee, and f(x), and EXO, and Zhang Liyin and BoA, and TVXQ, and even the remainders of The Grace. She smiled a lot and cried just as much, and basically did baby things.

Time goes by, as it always did. Sora grew, with lots of love from a lot of people. When she was old enough to eat solid food, I felt confident enough to leave her with Zhou Mi while I worked on a drama in Korea. We took turns, really. I'd film for the drama, and he'd take care of her. He'd work with the group, and I'd take care of her.

Some people said that SuJu was getting too old for this, with Leeteuk cracking forty. Still, they had enough international success to even take a spot on Billboard. I was recognized at the World Music Awards and the Grammys as the songwriter of the year. And all the while, Sora grew. 

I worked on movies, I moved on in life. I sat down with her and her books, encouraging her to go to school. She learned quickly, a lot like me. Of course, she had different linguistic advantages from me. At home, we spoke a mix of English and Mandarin, and in public we spoke Korean. You'd be amazed at how well children learn. You'd think "How could you confuse a child like that?! You should just pick one!" But the truth is, children who grow up in multi-lingual households just speak both languages. They pick up on it. I don't know how. It's one of those wonders of the undeveloped mind.

At one point, I was taking a role in a romantic comedy in America, and let my parents take care of Sora. She'd never met her grandparents before, and, at a little over a year old, was a bit scared of them, but I think they made good babysitters. My parents did what good grandparents always do: spoiled her. As my father said, "It's what grandparents do. You teach them how to follow the rules, and we teach them how to break them."

Nobody was more enamored than Patrick, though.

"Patrick, it's your niece."

"My niece?" He asked me. His speech would never be perfect, but he communicated well enough now. I only wished I'd been there to see it happen.

"That's your sister's daughter."

"Jackie's baby?"

"No, Melissa's baby."

"Melissa's baby," he said softly, patting her head. She wasn't really small enough for me to hold anymore, but since Patrick was so big, he held her like I had when she was just born.

Even if I wasn't known to be strong enough to break bones, nobody would dare threaten me when I was walking with Patrick. He was big, and well-built. The kind of guy that would crush you in football. But what they didn't know was how completely gentle he was. I remember one time, he was playing with a bunch of younger kids on the playground, and they were hanging on his legs, telling him to play with him, and he was getting annoyed, but wouldn't push them away because he knew that he could hurt him.

It was the same way when Patrick had my daughter. I wasn't worried at all. He held her like he would hold a piece of glass. And I think somehow he knew right away that she was family.

I remained one of the most popular people in the world. Nothing like Beyonce or Lady Gaga, but everyone wanted Queen Be to be in their movie, or drama, or music video. Meanwhile, Super Junior took the world by storm, and I could happily say that I think the world was finally covered with Sapphire Blue balloons.

I worked very hard, in everything. I decided, with my music career at its end, I would go to college and get my degree, so I could have the right to tell my children to do their best in school.

I graduated from Seoul University with a bachelor's degree in Psychology, just like I'd wanted to do when I was in high school. It took some time, and a lot of late nights, but it was worth it.

By the time I was thirty I had been in twelve movies, six dramas, and thirty-five music videos. I had won four awards for songwriting internationally, eight for acting (five in Asia and three internationally. Though only one was an Oscar), along with the four awards I had won in Asia for my brief career in singing. I had written close to five hundred songs. 

The day that Snow Leopard Lady retired, I accepted the offer to take her job. I was the official main manager of SM. Managers reported to me about events, and I told them if ideas were okay. Which, sometimes, drove the people at SM crazy. On the other hand, I think the fans loved it.

I had the miraculous ability to veto music video concepts. Lee Soo Man was too old to say much of anything, and even Kim Young Min was thinking about giving away his job. Therefore, I unofficially abolished the "dancing in a box" concept. SM had plenty of money to spend on real music video sets that actually made sense with the songs. Sure, a lot of people weren't used to it, at first, but after the initial shock, sales skyrocketed, and no one could argue that allowing me to take the position had been a bad decision.

Min Hee and John were married in Wales. They still argued incessantly, and annoyed the crap out of me sometimes, with their accents, but they definitely loved each other.

Emily was my official photographer. Her studio was one of the most popular in Kpop. She even did the cover photos for her dear B.A.P. She was crazy as ever, but she got the job done. 

I could tell you that all of my friends had "happy endings", but that wouldn't be the right way to put it. They weren't endings. They had jobs, got married, maybe even had kids. But that's not the end, is it? Truth be told, the "ending", I think, is when you get to a certain point in your life that the future is easy to predict. I don't think their stories were over yet.

Even my friends/family at SM had success stories. I can't give away too many of the details, but they were able to settle down, at least a little. Even my oppas. They worked hard, all of their lives, and they deserved it.

Many groups decide to disband after the members have to go through the military. But not SuJu. That was one advantage of having so many members. They rotated through, a few at a time, until everyone was done. They kept going, even as they got older and older. They were all Ahjusshis. My Ahjusshis. They weren't just mine, though. Well, they never really were, but now they had people they could actually have relationships. 

SM became a well-known name worldwide, and I hadn't heard a complaint about "SM Engrish" in years. Not that I didn't still think of "y, Free & Single, I'm ready to bingo" with ultimate affection. I can't take all of the credit for that, though. SM hired lots of staff from around the world, including from places like South America and Africa. 

I worked, sometimes, for the new trainees, as a teacher and judge. One time, I was invited to watch one of the trainee competitions, since they were dancing to some of my songs. It felt nostalgic, watching those boys and girls work as hard as they could to make it into SM. They did the exact same things I had done when I had been in their shoes. Worked their butts off, lost weight from practicing their dances so much,  and there was even drama. It was still a cutthroat industry. No matter what I did, that would never change. I could only try to make it so that the company took better care of the trainees. I channeled some of my own paycheck into fixing up the old trainee building, including the giant cracks in the ceiling that had become so familiar to Min Hee and I, and a complete remake of the plumbing system that had failed us.

The big trainee exhibitions still happened, along with the parties afterwards.

I saw in many of the girls there the same fire that I'd had. Maybe still had. They were the future.

Change is difficult, and that is something I hadn't known when I'd first come to SM. Because nothing will change unless you change yourself first. When I had first come, I thought I could make it without any real work. And then I wanted to work myself to death in order to succeed. Neither was right. More than anything, I needed to learn how to rely on people for help sometimes. They'd learn that. I knew they would.

One day, I told Sora to dress nice, because we were going on a trip.

"Where are we going?" she asked me.

I smiled. "We're going to see one of Mama's old friends."

"But what about Didi?"

"Baba's taking care of Didi. This is something we ladies have to take care of."

"Okay..."

We drove down further into the countryside, and into a building decorated with nice flowers.

"Mama, why are there pictures of people everywhere?" Sora asked.

"These are people that have moved on. We put up their pictures to remind us of what they looked like."

"Moved on? You mean they moved to another place? Like when my friend moved to America?"

"Kind of, yeah. Only you don't ever see them again."

She looked around, and you could see the wheels turning in her head. Finally, she looked at me, and said, "I understand, Mama."

"You sure?"

She looked somber. "Yes, Mama. Are we going to see your friend?"

I led her through the shelves of pictures, personal effects, and flowers, and then found the one I wanted. "This is Mama's friend, Jung Ah. You should introduce yourself, Sora."

"Yes, Mama. Hello, Jung Ah-imo. I'm Sora Zhou."

I smiled at the picture. "Hey, Eonni. You doing okay? I brought my daughter, Sora, to see you today. Isn't she pretty?" I leaned over to Sora. "Are you going to give Jung Ah eonni your flower?"

Sora obediently put the flower on the shelf.

"You'll probably laugh when I tell you about what your replacement did last week. She's more of an assistant than a manager, though. She was driving to pick me up and forgot that I was already in the car. But hey, she's just a kid. I'm my own manager now, really."

"Mama, who is Jung Ah?" Sora asked.

I put my hand on the top of her head. "Jung Ah took good care of me, when I still sang."

"Why don't you sing, Mama?"

I crouched down, brushing the brown hair out of Sora's eyes. "Because the same day that Jung Ah-imo moved on, Mama got hurt."

Sora nodded, seriously. "Okay, Mama."

"Should we go have a picnic?" I asked her.

She nodded. "We can set some food aside for Jung Ah-imo."

I pulled her into my arms, smiling. "Yes. Yes we can."