Beginnings

19 years ago this afternoon, I was at the doctor's office.  He was checking me out for the last time before I would go into labor later that night.  I was really restless that evening and couldn't sleep.  I went downstairs to watch TV.  The movie Bonnie and Clyde was on WGN or TBS or one of those channels that manages to match the running time of a movie with minutes of commercials.  Nothing soothes the soul like a good gangster movie.  I had a lot of braxton hicks (fake) contractions with this pregnancy and thought I was having them that night.  Then they seemed to become rather regular.  I started timing them with the commercials on TV  - the one and only time they have or ever will again come in handy.  About the time Buck takes a shot to the head and Blanche goes ballistic, I timed them at a little over 2 minutes apart.  I went upstairs to wake John.

I said, "I think this is it.  We'd better call Mary Kay" (our neighbor who would tend to Jim when the time came to go to the hospital).  I puttered around in the bathroom for a few minutes and came back to the bedroom to find that he had gone back to sleep.  I don't remember if I hit him or not - but I know I wanted to.  We called Mary Kay, she came over to spend the rest of the night, and we were off to the hospital.

We arrived there somewhere around 3:00 am.  Things went very smoothly.  No almost-emergency C-section like with Jim.  They gave me an epidural, and I watched my contractions come and go on a machine.  Around 6:00 am it was time to push and Hannah, with all of her black hair, was born at 6:31.

A new beginning at it's finest.

19 years later, we're hoping for another new beginning.  We collected Hannah and all of her belongings from college this afternoon.  She hates being at Millikin and can't take another semester.  She wants to transfer to ISU, but it is too late to get into any classes this semester there or even at Heartland Community College.  I'd be lying if I said I wasn't upset.  Pick an emotion and I've had it this week.  I threw every argument in the book at her and came at it from every angle to get her to reconsider.  I yelled at God, then asked for forgiveness and guidance.  This is NOT how it is supposed to happen.

Until she starts her summer job in June, the next few months could be pretty long ones for her.  But I know she will find her way.  She will start school again in the fall, probably at ISU.  Ironic, that in just shy of nine months, we can look forward to another new beginning.