Oh Boy! Oh Boy! It's A Boy!! (Part 1)

March 27, 1975 was a much anticipated day for my hubby and me. I had stayed up all night March 26, typing a 20 page paper for one of my hubby's classes at Bible College. This was in the days of typewriters, not computers. If I made a mistake I had to start all over on a clean sheet of paper. I finally went to bed at 4:00 A.M. and then my hubby came home from work at 5:00 A.M. We were both in a sound sleep. At 7:00 A.M. Micah decided to wake Mom up with contractions. Of course, Iowa was having its worst ice storm in history. I woke my hubby up because the contractions were getting closer. So we trekked out to the car very carefully. All the way to the hospital we saw cars, trucks and semi's in the ditch. I prayed and asked the Lord to keep us safe and to keep the car on the very icy road because I selfishly did not want to have my first baby, during an ice storm, in a ditch. We got to the hospital safely with plenty of time to spare. The hospitals at that time were just starting to allow the fathers to be in the delivery room. Micah was born at 6:33 P.M. My hubby was in the room for the delivery and was elated that our first born was a boy. (Micah means "who is like unto Jehovah".) We were in the hospital until Easter Sunday morning. My hubby was with a pastor friend when he heard the song, "Because He Lives" and it became a favorite one that he sang quite often to Micah.

Bringing baby Micah home was an entirely different thing. I was a nervous, new mother and Micah was a very colicky baby. So he cried and cried and cried. Chuck and I kept a vigil during the night so we would stay sane. That allowed one of us to sleep. The crying continued for about a year. Once that ended, he became a very good sleeper. Since my hubby was still in school Micah became my little buddy. We did everything together because daddy was in school or working. Micah was born before car seats, so he stood behind my shoulder when I was driving. He had a pathetic car seat that basically just allowed him to see over the dash. He loved boxes and would arrange them so they looked like a pulpit. He would stand behind them and put his pointer in the air and say, "Peech da Word." Who do you think he was imitating? It was so cute.

The summer Micah turned 3, my hubby graduated from college. I received a "PHT" degree - ("Put Hubby Through" degree) Both my hubby and I had to take 2 summer school classes. Then we joined a mission and started traveling to different churches. Micah was such a good traveler and learned to read maps at a very young age. He would sleep so soundly in the car that we could carry him in or out of the car or a house and he stayed asleep. He had our slide presentation memorized!!

The summer Micah turned 5, he became a big brother to a baby girl, "Jewels". He had prayed for a girl and then changed his mind. I told him that God may have already answered his prayer and he decided that was okay. I was at my sister's house when I went into labor. My hubby and Micah were at a camp 8 hours away. (I almost went to camp - we would have caused quite a commotion!) They didn't make it back to Iowa in time for the delivery. But they both came a few days later and Micah was so excited to meet his sister. But he was so disappointed that she couldn't play football!!! "Jewels" and Micah had so much fun together when she learned to walk. We were in New York helping with an Indian Camp and ended up staying there while we traveled to different churches. This camp was a little boys' paradise with all kinds of trees to climb and land to roam around on. The camp director had two little boys Micah's age. They played from sunup to sundown.

The summer after Micah turned 7, "A.J." was born. He now had two little sisters to tease! By this time he was learning how to tease without hurting someone and also to know when he should stop. He was a protective big brother which was so nice. When A.J. was 2 months old we moved to Ketchikan, Alaska.