Greatest Contribution

I remember the exact moment I knew what I wanted to do with my life.

I was about ten years old, sitting in our family van, waiting to go somewhere.  I was reading a book (because reading and sleeping are the two things I do in a vehicle!) and I came across the word obstetrician.  Not quite sure what it was, I asked my mom for clarification.  She explained to me that it was a doctor who delivered babies.

And I was hooked.

Bringing new life into the world?  Helping people? Making the world a better place?  I knew deep into my soul that that was what I was going to do.

My resolve never faltered throughout middle school and high school.  I searched for, and found, a college with a reputable medical program and headed to Concordia, determined to fulfill my lifelong goal of going to college, going to medical school in Duluth, and specializing in rural medicine and obstetrics.

But...I struggled in college.

Science did not come naturally to me.  I could fly through English Literature and Communications, but I had a permanent panicked feeling for a year during Organic Chemistry I and II, and I had to re-take Biochemistry.  Even during all of that struggle, I was absolutely convinced that I could power through it.  I could force myself to memorize molecular structure, anatomy, and anything else I needed to, in order to accomplish my dream.

But, eventually, a part of me started drowning in self-doubt.  And my mentor physician sat me down and explained that her practice of being a part-time rural physician and part-time mom just didn't work well.  I felt adrift, not really sure if I wanted to change to a P.A., a Midwife, or *gulp* a nurse (like my mom!)

And then I met Brad.  And suddenly my path shifted.

Not in an "It's getting hard so I'm going to give up" way (hello?  Organic Chem I & II suffered through!) Not in an "I'm throwing all of my goals to the side to become what someone else wants" way.  My path shifted to a "This is absolutely right, and we'll figure our future out together" way.

*     *     *     *      *

I remember the exact moment I knew what I wanted to do with my life...the second time...

...and the third time...

...and the forth time.

There is a line in an Alan Jackson song that has come to mean a lot to me.  In Small Town Southern Man he sings, "His greatest contribution is the ones he'll leave behind"...  I still plan on making contributions, but my greatest ones are in the pictures above.

If I would be able to go back and tell my 10-year-old self that I am a stay-at-home mom, she would have wrinkled her nose, disappointment on her face.  There would be no telling her that my own bringing new life into the world is what has made the world a better place.  And that until you hold that perfectly imperfect child in your arms, there is no way to explain the depth of that feeling.