When You Become A Mother

Fifty-six years ago this morning, the day after my 'due date', I woke up knowing I would be giving birth that day. Actually, my first-born took a little longer and wasn't born until thirteen minutes past midnight, making his birthday the 10th of August.

This morning I changed my FB profile picture to this one of me and Douglas taken in November three years ago at his grandson Jack's first birthday party.

I love(d) the photo because it shows Doug looking so well after months of cancer surgery, radiation/chemo treatments, feeding tube, etc, etc.

This was Douglas and me on his birthday three years ago, August, 2015. So you can see why I was so happy to see him looking much better in November that year.
All his check ups since have been good. For the second year he has 'donated' his birthday as a fundraiser for Iowa Health Foundation, asking for donations to help others in lieu of birthday gifts for himself.

If you are thinking I changed my profile picture to include him because tomorrow is his birthday, you would be partially right.

Were that the only reason, I might have used this one of when he was less than a day old.


I used the one of us from three years ago to remind myself that all would go well today as he underwent another surgery.
He called me yesterday to tell me about it - that the Docs thought they had 'finally' figured out why they have been having so much trouble getting any of the blood pressure medicines to work for him. They discovered that one of his kidneys has only been getting 20% of the blood flow it should be, so he was having out-patient surgery this morning to have a stent put in.

Shelly just called to say that everything went as planned and that he is in recovery. He'll have to take it easy for a couple days, but hopefully this will be the answer they've been looking for re: the blood pressure.

It doesn't matter how old your child(ren) are, you still worry about them. And no matter how much you resist it, it is hard not to let your thoughts go there.
When you become a mother, it is for always and forever.