Daughter

  I just registered our sweet beautiful daughter, Chloe, for 7th grade yesterday.  I think back to when we were first married and how badly I wanted I child. You ask Trav and he will tell you how I would cry and pray for one.  Then after he returned from his first deployment and a couple months of trying later we were expecting.  She has been a blessing since that very day.  I joke how easy of a pregnancy she was and how easy her birth was and the toddler years, potty trained by 18mos, even now that she is 12 she is an easy kid so something big must be coming around the bend.  

  She was born the day after Christmas on the worse snow storm Kansas and Oklahoma had seen and we actually had to stay in a hotel near the hospital on Christmas Day in order to be there bright and early the next day so I could be induced.  Our family, all living in KS at the time, drove down to Oklahoma in those conditions to be able to meet our little bundle of joy.  Some visiting from Florida even who had never seen snow.  I think back now at how naive we were.  How I knew just enough to keep me and her healthy, like what to avoid eating and what things were normal as pregnancies progress.  Now I hear horror stories and learn all the things that could go wrong and it scares you.  We had one test come back saying there was a possibility she could have down syndrome and I remember very clearly calling Trav on the phone, who was out of town with my dad at the time, and explaining this to him.  He immediately started back home. I called my mom to cry and ask questions.  She simply told me if the tests show she has down syndrome she will still be the most loved little girl and everything will be ok.  I felt comforted in knowing I had support and that yes no matter the out come this was my child and God had given her to me.  We did a amniocentesis and a level 2 ultra sound and as we sat there scared, young, away from our family we held hands watching as they looked her over and stuck me with the biggest needle possible.  They conformed we were having little girl and told us we would have to wait for the results of the amniocentesis.  It was hard waiting, not because it would change the out come of this pregnancy, not that we had any thoughts of termination or loving this child any less, but just the unknown.  I am very much a planner and I like to know what is going to happen and I like to be prepared.

  All of that seems so far away now, we have watched her grow and learn to walk, ride a bike, a horse, and do numerous other things.  She has always been my little sidekick, especially when Trav would deploy, we had our routine and we would find things to keep us busy.  I look at her now, standing taller than me and wearing the same size clothes and bigger shoes than me and think of how tiny she was.  How on the day of her birth her dad held her tight and wouldn't let her go.  She has blessed us in so many ways and I wonder what great things she will accomplish.  She loves animals and is awesome with kids.  She dreams of going to Africa someday.  She is very much her own person, she dresses in cargo shorts and t-shirts and converse and big black glasses.  She has great school friends and likes school.  Her teachers always rave about how great she is.  She made straight A's last year and I proudly have my honor roll student sticker on the back of the car.

  Someone said in our sunday school class the other day how our children aren't really ours, they are God's we just get to borrow them for a while.  I am so thankful to get to "borrow" Chloe.  I know it will be hard to let her go in a couple years as she goes off to college and starts making her own life but I know she will be fine, she is loved more than she knows.   And I know she will do great things for this world.