one year ago today

was the last day of my visit to Wisconsin. Mom was going to take George and me out to a fancy coffee place for lattes and scones, but unfortunately the car wouldn't start and we found out from the nice AAA guy that stopped by the house that she needed a new battery. In the meantime I had some minor spotting and minor contractions and had called my midwife who told me to go immediately to an ER to get checked out before I flew back to Michigan (planned for the next day). I wasn't really concerned but thought I ought to just be checked out in case. So Mom took me to the ER instead of the coffeeshop, by way of Sears Automotive to get a new battery in her car. You should have seen the look on those guys faces when she said she needed it right away because she was taking her pregnant daughter to the ER, it was as though I was a grenade with the pin pulled out and they had to get me out of there as soon as possible. In less time than you would have thought imagineable we were speeding along the Beltine trying to figure out what hospital you should go to for this kind of thing in Madison. We landed on Meriter for reasons I can't recall. I was plopped in a wheelchair about .3 seconds after walking into the ER, zoomed up to L&D triage, and quickly found out that things were a whole lot more serious than I ever imagined.

Sometimes after all that has passed I start taking the happy ending for granted. I can feel like nothing much *really* happened or maybe there wasn't *actually* that much danger, because so much of that time was fairly uneventful bedrest. For some reason I resist seeing miracles in my own life but there were many for our family last summer. Not only that baby Helen stayed put not just to term but exactly to her due date.. but also that Mom and I randomly chose a hospital that was in-network for my insurance and we didn't end up owing a dime for the hospital stay or the care afterwards.. and that it all happened in Wisconsin where I had plenty of support from family while I was on bedrest... the airline agent who somehow "couldn't get Tim's card to swipe" so we weren't charged for last minute changes in his plane ticket back from France... there are plenty of reasons to see God's hand in the events of last summer.

And just to drive the point home, my beautiful baby girl achieved a major milestone today, exactly one year after that very scary day. And I am thankful.