When I rolled out of my warm, cozy bed, the bright sun was peeking through my sheer curtains, and I could hear the breeze whip the yellow Labrador flag I had hanging outside my living room window. I stretched my arms towards my stark white ceiling and started making my bed. I didn't have much planned for this day: some light cleaning around the house and a weeks worth of dirty laundry that had piled up in the laundry room. I had no clue that this was going to be one of the most emotional, life-changing days I had ever experienced.
It was the first day of my husband, John's new job. He decided to leave his love of farming to work as a fiber-optics technician for our local area phone/internet/cable company. This was something that he thought had a more reliable and steady future. He was to start training two weeks ago. After my eight and half month checkup, my doctor thought I would be having the baby anytime within the next week. John's boss offered to let John wait two weeks before starting so he could spend more time with the baby and not have to worry about taking time off of work. We thought this was a generous offer and took him up on it. We never considered that it would be another two weeks before I actually had the baby. I packed John's lunch, gave him his cooler an kissed him goodbye.
"Make sure to call me if you have any problems today," John said as I shut the back door behind him. I thought to myself, "I"m not going to have the baby today. I feel fine.".
Around lunchtime, I went out into the cool seventy degree weather and hung some freshly washed clothes on the clothes line. The wind was blowing slightly out of the south, perfect for drying clothes. As I was hanging a pair of John's blue jeans on the line, I felt a dull cramp-like pain in my stomach. I blamed it on the undercooked chicken sandwich I had for lunch, and didn't think about it again. I continued hanging the basket of freshly washed laundry on the clothes line and went inside.