Timing is Everything

While I cannot remember the exact date, my OB/GYN's nurse gave me a projected due date after that first "look-see" ultrasound on which only the yolk sac was clearly visible. I only know that it was between my birthday (August 29) and my anniversary (September 4). Didn't feel like a coincidence to me. My sons were both born on January 23, exactly three years apart. I'll never forget putting together my clothes for the hospital, walking down the hall in our home as my husband said "I can't believe this is happening." My water had broken at 11 p.m. on January 22, just an hour before my oldest son Matt's third birthday. The doctor gave orders for Pitocin to be adminstered when I got to the hospital. Jonathan was born with Matt in the room. "Hush," Matt said to Jonathan as he uttered his first loud cries. "That doesn't usually work," the doctor piped up. (It's still not working, eleven years later.) One night during my three weeks of waiting for my "follow-up" during my most recent pregnancy, I read a book by the wife of a contemporary Christian musician. She explained why she had named her daughter Hannah. She wrote that the name means "gift of God's grace." Tears flooded my face. I closed the book and asked my husband whether if this child were a girl he would mind my naming her Hannah. If ever a human being felt called upon to revel in God's grace, it was me. I felt I had made every mistake known to parenting and weathered every emotional storm on the planet.