Life is a journey.  There are stops along the way--where you don't know which way to go.  Sometimes you don't even know where you are going or why.  I reached the end of a road when my third child died.  I had been alone without friends and family for so long I felt like I was in a desert.  But my nature is to keep plugging away even though I don't know how to do what I'm doing.  I just keep doing it, or try something else.  I never quit.  I don't know why I am that way.  I just am.

Ken and I never spoke to each other about what we were going through.  I didn't understand his world, he didn't understand mine.  But we respected and loved each other--and it was the glue that held us together.  We each suffered in our own way.

After a year, I told Ken that I felt that we should have another child.  One that we "planned" to have.  He said, "No."  Emphatically.  He had been crushed when Amy died.  He kept saying, "It should have been me.  I  always thought I would be killed doing what I do.  It should have been me."  He didn't understand what had happened either.  We were both muddling along.  I reminded him that when we got married, we wanted to have three children--just not so quickly.  And eventually, he agreed.

Nine months later, he dropped me off at the hospital (in labor) and took the girls to the sitter--promising to be back in thirty minutes.  He didn't make it.  Twenty six minutes after I walked in I delivered.  The attending nurse called Ken and said, "Sir, your wife wants to speak to you," and handed me the phone.

He kept asking if the baby was all right.  If I was all right.  Over and over.  He didn't ask if it was a boy or a girl.  He didn't care.  I finally told him, "It's a boy."  After a moment or two he said, "Are you sure?"  (After three girls, he probably thought we would always have girls.) I told the doctor what Ken had said. The doctor held the baby upside down by the feet and jiggled him up and down and said, "Tell him I'm sure it's a boy, he is fully equipped."  It's funny now, but at that moment, I was just thankful that we had a healthy baby--whatever it was.  And so was Ken.  We knew the value of a new life.  We would never question God's plans for us, or our children again.