Our Daughters Day of Arrival
by Craig Tormoen

Auspicious is as accurate as any word we could find to describe the day.  We also felt  serene and serendipitous seemed to be appropriate (both found on page 1119 of The American Heritage Dictionary, 2nd College Edition.)  .)  Actually the entire week was rather auspicious  as we watched the moon rise night after night. We had crystal clear skies here all week as the moon gained momentum towards its summit on Saturday night. Within a minute of the full moon rising on the 30th, Jill started having contractions. They too gained momentum, and reached the summit at 7:15 am on Sunday as Aida Lynne was born in our home. Within minutes after that, the moon dropped behind the snowy pines, and the Sunrise took over the job of making the ice sparkle.

Jill was amazing and showed great strength and courage to be able to do it all at home. In the end I was about 20 minutes away from catching the baby myself, but our midwife, Christie, (pictured with the old fashioned baby scale) got there with enough time to take off her coat, issue a few quick but calm orders, and say "push".

"The people who see miracles are the people who look for miracles, the people who open their eyes to the miracles that surround us always." ~Tom Robbins~