By Mark Lennihan, AP With the skeleton of the World Trade Center twin towers in the background, New York City firefighters work amid debris on Cortlandt Street on Sept. 11, 2001.

I can’t believe the 10th anniversary of Sept. 11, 2001 is here. It just doesn’t seem possible for 10 years to have passed, but it has.

My daughter also turns 10 in less than a month. I can’t believe I have a daughter who is that old. I’m not that old, am I?

I was pregnant on Sept. 11th and closing in on my due date. I had been experiencing a lot of false labor contractions and was on an early labor watch. I woke up that morning with a lot of contractions. I drank water, laid back down and started timing. I received a text (getting news alerts by text was brand new technology) stating a single engine plane had struck one of the Twin Towers in New York. I sighed. It was going to be one of those news days.

I should probably explain that I was a web producer for 9News.com. I was the first web producer hired by the station and had worked for two years to help grow a fledgling news website. We were still discovering the powers of news online.

I started getting dressed to head into the station. The phone rang. Something was happening in New York and I needed to get in right away. A second plane had hit the second tower.

I arrived at the station and immediately jumped into news coverage mode just as the first tower fell. We knew that this was something big. Something serious. Something terrifying.

The day is cemented in my mind. I watched monitors showing people jumping from windows in the World Trade Center. Papers flying, people running. Debris everywhere. Images that are forever ingrained in American history.

I remember someone yelling in the newsroom “The second tower is falling!”

I looked at the monitors to see a huge building, an icon of America and its strength, collapse. We were living in a nightmare.

The FAA was trying to land every single plane that was in the air. We heard rumblings of the White House under attack, the Pentagon, Air Force One. It just wouldn’t stop. I wondered how and when it would stop. Nothing had ever been so uncertain. As the day went on, we reported on additional buildings falling in New York, a plane crash at the Pentagon and the heroics on Flight 93 that crashed in Pennsylvania.

I looked down at my bulging belly and wondered what kind of world I was bringing my baby into. I almost wished I could undo it. Save her before she was born into this world of fire and brimstone. I also felt contractions and prayed I wouldn’t go into labor and bring my baby into the world on this dark, dark day.

I worked well into the evening, writing, watching, covering every minute and every update that came across until finally they sent me home somewhere after 10. I didn’t really want to go home. I didn’t want to have to stop and think about the real impact of what happened that day. News mode is focused and impersonal in a way. You have to shut it out to get your job done.

I went home and hugged my husband but couldn’t sleep. I was due back at the station at 5am. I got up early the next morning and walked to my kitchen in the dark. I lived in a different world now. It was scary, it was unknown. I looked outside at the darkness. It was silent. Not a plane, helicopter or car was out. Our house backed up to a major intersection. At 4am, it was dark, but then car lights swept by. I jumped. Right there I felt the impact of 9/11. We didn’t feel safe. No one knew if and where there would be more attacks or if it was over.

As I drove in to work on the empty streets I listened to the radio. It was broadcasting live from New York. They were announcing all of the closures – the tunnels, the trains, the streets. I had never been to New York so I had a hard time imagining the chaos that had enveloped the city.

I was numb. Yesterday did indeed really happen. People died. Families were ripped apart. Our foundation of safety was gone. Flying commercial and going through security would have a different meaning.

There was pain everywhere.

I don’t remember much from the days following Sept. 11th. I do remember the silence. Everything seemed so quiet. Fewer cars on the streets. No planes in the air. People were staying home and inside.

I also remember the coming together and the bonding that the American people felt. It was such a strong feeling of togetherness and strength that we would all pull together from coast to coast to protect each other and stand strong. I have never seen so many American flags hanging from doorways, windows and car antenaes. It brought tears to my eyes.

It’s hard for me to believe the same people are so divided 10 years later.

A little less than a month later, my daughter was born. She was beautiful and brought hope to our new world. I was able to take a break from the Sept. 11th aftermath and then the Anthrax letter scare during my maternity leave. I cut out newspaper clippings for her baby book that all included stories and pictures from that day. I have vowed to make sure she understands the events of Sept. 11th and keeps love, strength and unity to all aspects of her life.

My heart goes out today to everyone who lost someone on Sept. 11. We all lost something that day and were deeply affected forever I just hope we can carry on the strength and unity of that day and the days that followed and find a way to come back together as one America. We may disagree, but we are all Americans.