This has an unexpected blessing attached. This girl, from the time she was a toddler , was fiercely independent. Now she is finally asking me for information and help. I was with her just before her water broke for the first child and sensed she was in early labor. She denied it. They lived 4 houses away. I found out the next morning that my first grandchild had been born several hours earlier and she was in labor when I saw her the evening before. They wanted to do birth as a couple with no one else involved but the doc and nurse.

For the past week, I've been getting at least a call or two a day to ask questions about meds or lab values or contagion or asking me to look up things on the net or care for my grandson (love that!). Pain sometimes has purpose and we are blest when we can see that purpose. I feel as if I am on the receiving end of some of that blessing.