Emma Kate, the Great!

One decade.



Ten years.



3,650 days.



87,360 hours.



5,241, 600 minutes.

It's hard to think of Emma as 5 million of anything, so let's stick to the one decade idea, especially since Roy has a hard time thinking of her as anything more than six years old. And yet, today, as she marks her tenth birthday, I can't help but go back a few years and think about her little life story and how special she is to our family.

About eleven years ago, we were living in a little duplex in Medford, struggling to find the ends, let alone get them to meet, and living somewhat haphazardly from month to month, hoping Roy's temp job would turn into something permanent. Sara was four, Anne had just turned two, which meant that most of the Relief Society contingent were starting to knit baby booties for a number three baby. Roy and I knew we weren't done having children, but we also knew that it was simply Not Time Yet. Nevertheless, I remember suffering dig after dig from many people at church wondering if there were any buns in the oven yet.

I hated this. Really, strongly, vehemently. It got to the point that I would see certain sisters coming down the hall towards me and I would run the other way. It hurt in so many ways -- I wanted to have another baby, sure, but it was none of their business! Why do people do that, anyway? I promised myself I would never needle any woman about having children, and I never have. (Knock on wood...)

Anyway, we prayed and fasted, and paid our tithing, and everything we were supposed to do. Girls Camp came along, and I wasn't sure if I could go, simply for the reason that Roy couldn't afford to take off a whole week, but several of my friends in the ward stepped forward and offered to watch my girls so I could go. Roy even felt strongly that I should go, have a fun week, and not worry about a thing.

(Which reminds me, there was another thing to worry about: my grandparents. One of the reasons we moved to Medford was to keep an eye on my dad's parents, who were in their 90's and still living at home at the time, but their health was rapidly deteriorating and I never knew when I was going to get a call from the ER.)

Anyway, I went to camp, had a wonderful, exhausting, and spiritually energizing week as usual, but on the last night, I had injured myself (I can't even remember what I did -- I think I was running along the path and tripped over a tree root or something and twisted my ankle. Typical Sue grace, as usual!). They took me to the nurse, and I was in a lot of pain, but while I was there I got a phone call. I answered; it was Roy.

He got the job.

I cried and cried, (hysterically, I might add -- I think it was the combined effect of my twisted ankle, complete spiritual draining, and ultimate RELIEF) and everyone came running, thinking it had something to do with my grandparents. Instead, I greeted them with a grin and I remember telling my friend Ann, "Guess what? We're going to have another baby!"

Well, it didn't happen quite that quickly. First things first, we bought our first house. The night before we signed papers, our stake boundaries were rearranged and our new house ended up being in a completely different ward -- Ann's ward, actually. We haven't been parted since, and both of us have moved since then! The very next Sunday, I got called to be the Young Woman's president in my new ward. And the Sunday after that, we found out we were expecting.

It was as if the Lord was standing over us, saying, "Here, have a blessing! Have another! AND ANOTHER!!"

Sure, I still had to deal with my share of morning sickness. And my grandparents took turns having medical emergencies. But in the midst of all that, we still found ourselves blessed.

The funny thing with this pregnancy was that we never found out if Emma was going to be a boy or a girl. That sounds funny, but it wasn't really funny at the time. After two girls, I was really hoping for a boy. So much so that I had friends try all their gender-guessing tricks --you know, the wedding ring on a string, the frozen grape thing, the Chinese birth calendar...which, weirdly enough, actually worked for my other two girls. Problem was, Emma's due date was right on the August/September line, so if she had been born 24 hours earlier she might have been a boy....

I digress. The main thing is, Roy and I could not agree on names. At all. We actually argued over it. The boy name we had picked out for years, but the girl name he had picked out was "Gwen." I wanted a "Kate". Fisticuffs, people. Don't ask me why. It was the hormones.

Well, we finally called a truce one weekend when my Grandmother (my spanish-speaking abuela, to refresh your memories) took a particularly nasty spill and ended up in a rehabilitative hospital. Roy and I took the girls to go visit her, promising ourselves that if the subject of baby names would come up, we would change the subject as quickly as possible.

We didn't even have the chance. We literally walked into the door of Grandma's room, and she nearly fell out of bed, she was so excited to see us. "I'm so glad you came today!" she cried out. "I had a dream last night that you were going to have a girl, and her name is going to be Emma!"

Roy and I were so taken aback by this announcement, that all we could do was stare at each other. It was as if a lightning bolt shot through both of us at the same time, and we both spoke. "Emma," we repeated. "We like it!"

Grandma also informed us that she had been doing some thinking. She had had four children, and those four children provided her with 23 grandchildren, and now our baby was going to be her 73rd great-grandchild. (Or something like that -- I need to do the math myself, I can't remember the exact numbers). I remember the look on her face when she proudly announced that this meant our baby was going to be her 100th descendant!

Well, that clinched it. We had to name this baby Emma...whether she was a girl or not!

I managed to waddle my way through the rest of the pregnancy, including:

1. a trip to Girls Camp eight month's pregnant...
   
2. then a weekend of youth conference during the building of our Medford Temple where I was in charge of fun and games for five hundred youth...
   
3. followed by a week long panic attack (seriously, some people get Post Partum. I got Pre Partum. All I could think about was, What if it really was a boy? What would I do with a boy?! I don't know how to dress boys, I don't know how to play with boys...and so forth and so on. Yeah. Hormones.) ....
   
4. and finally, through a season of Pear Picking. I didn't get to help out at the stake pear farm much, but Roy sure did. In fact, guess where he was on the afternoon of August 31st when I realized my water broke ?
   
   You guessed it. The Pear Farm.
   
   

   And did we have cell phones back then?
   

   Of course not.
   
   

   So how long did I have to wait to get a hold of my husband?
   
   

   Oh, Roy came home around 9:00 that night, sunburned and completely exhausted and totally not happy about going to the hospital one more time (we had already gone three times, just to be checked and sent home.)

I was anxious to have this baby before midnight, just in case it was a boy (darn that Chinese calendar anyway!), but of course, we didn't get there until 10 p.m. When they did finally get me in there and confirm that my water had actually broken (it wasn't a gush like it was supposed to be, it was a trickle, so how was I supposed to know it was for real?), and they diagnosed me with group B strep, and the anesthesiologist couldn't get the darn epidural to work, and the doctors and nurses were running around like crazy trying to take care of me, and Roy was hyperventilating....

I distinctly remember the exact moment I looked up at the ceiling and calmly and firmly decided that I was going to have this baby on my own, so I tuned everybody out and started breathing. By myself. And I did. Lamaze WORKS, baby!

Emma Kate Quackenbush finally made her appearance at 4:30 in the afternoon on a lovely, perfectly boiling Wednesday on the first of September, 1999. When my doctor announced that she was a girl, I cried like I've never cried for any of my kids. I was so relieved she wasn't a boy!

Emma has always been loving and sweet and good natured. She loves everybody, and always puts the needs of others first. I can't imagine our lives without this wonderful ray of sunshine waking me up every morning!

Happy Birthday, Emma! We sure love you!