Birthday changes

          My birthdays were never any fun. In fact, my actual birth day was under negative superstition......Friday the 13th. By the time I was 6, I was already dreading the approach of a birthday. Things never went quite right. The first real tornado drill at my elementary school was on my birthday. I cried, huddled in the basement with my classmates, thinking of my mother driving to school with celebratory cupcakes.
         Friends had grandmothers who died on my birthday. In fact, my own great-grandmother managed that on my 8th. A great aunt again chose a later birthday. Pets died, special items were lost or broken or the day was filled with utter disappointment. If there wasn't a terrifying thunderstorm, it was raining. The eve of my birthday always filled me with an unhealthy mix of gift anticipation and morbid dread.
         My friends at school laughed and joked about my birthdays. My family tried to convince me that obituaries printed the wrong dates. My mother always said my original birth date was a wonderful blessing. I was a colicky child.
         Twenty-four years of rotten birthdays and with twenty-five soon to be behind me, I found myself in the hospital. Pre-Term labor. My first unborn child wouldn't stay put. Two and a half months before his due date I found myself in a stiff bed with anti-labor drugs coursing through my body for the second time. We'd been here once already, but things were looking up. The doctors apparently thought I could go home for my birthday. The labor had stopped and the medicine had worked. I should've warned them of my history.
         Birthday-eve the nurse removed the gourmet meal that had only just been placed before me, citing reccuring labor. Thunder rumbled in the distance. My mother was coming to spend the day tomorrow, since it now appeared I woudn't be going home.
         I sent my husband to work the next morning in the rain, he drove two hours towards home. My mother sat through numerous tests with me, patiently. My in-laws stopped in to see me. The doctor apologetically retracted my birthday present, no trip home today. Back on the nasty medicine. Was I really surprised? This was a birthday.
         A few hours later it seemed the medicine no longer had its normal effect on me and my unborn son. Urgent calls to my husband indicated his presence was needed. By delivery time with no sign of my husband, my mother still refusing to enter or put on the gowns required for the delivery room and my in-laws standing around perplexed, I found myself in tears. This was the worst birthday yet and this poor child would be affected with the same malady as me.
         God graciously had another motive. My husband arrived in time, my son weighing under 3 pounds with a head the size of an orange thrived on room air, the sun broke through the clouds, I was able to rest minus drugs, and..... I no longer had a birthday of my own to celebrate. The knowledge that I needed a break from twenty-five years of cloudy birthdays had encouraged my son to make an early exit.
         I wasn't fully aware the effect this new person had on my future until his first birthday rolled around. I was busy with preparations, family was coming, there would be a party and lots of pictures. I joked with many people that I no longer had a birthday and wouldn't be needing gifts. We enjoyed homemade cake and icecream. My son squealed at the wrapping paper, giggled into cheerful faces. I was proud of his efforts at communicating, the dribbled icecream, the smiles at any opened box.
         The day passed uneventfully. No one choked on the strawberries in the ice cream. None of the presents were broken or needed returned. No family fights broke out and everyone made it home safely. As dusk approached and I put my wee man too bed, I looked out the window at the rose colored yet clear sky and thanked the Lord for the best birthday gift ever.

         (8 years later, the sun is still shining on birthdays.)

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