More often than not, you don’t know why something is happening until later. You can argue, fuss, beg, and plead, but sometimes things just work out like they are supposed to. In my family we often thank God for this.

Two weeks before my due date my doctor decided we were going to induce. We didn’t expect, however, that my grandfather would be leaving us. We pushed back the induce date, rather than that Sunday; I would wait and go in on Wednesday after the funeral.

My son, however, was the little stinker then that he is today. Two weeks early and he was ready and he wasn’t waiting. I smile now as I can hear him say many times through the years “but you SAID on Sunday mom,” he says it now and he was saying it that day. After laboring at home all day, we finally went to the hospital, and the nurses congratulated me at getting to a seven on my own. I was pretty shocked; the pain really had only been bad in the last hour.

After four hours of hard labor, they finally told me it just wasn’t going to happen. My son’s head was faced up and his heart rate was getting irregular and there was going to HAVE to be a c-section. I wasn’t even really given a choice. I cried, knowing that this meant I had a chance of missing my grandfather’s funeral.

And I did miss his funeral. We left the day after my grandfather was buried.

Fast-forward 22 months to my daughter. We were already scheduled for a repeat c-section and were to be at the hospital at 6 a.m. on the 24th. However, all day on the 23rd I was having contractions. Then I lost the plug. I sat down and just tried to relax and wait. I didn’t WANT to pay for the extra day at the hospital!!! But something deep down in me, what I now know is my maternal instinct, kicked in and told me to go. So at 8 p.m. we headed to the hospital. I was told that the doctor doesn’t do c-sections until you are dilated to five; I was three. But since it was getting late, she decided to come in early. Two and a half hours later I delivered my daughter, knowing something wasn’t quite the way it should be.

Thankfully, it ended up fine. My daughter had a true knot in her cord that was pulled. But had my son not been born by c-section, I never would have scheduled a second. Had I not done that, the doctor wouldn’t have come in early. Just a few minutes, a few different decisions, and we may not have the absolutely beautiful and spunky daughter we have today.

I learned quickly to trust that mom gut, and it has saved me a few times. And I learned even more quickly who was really making the decisions in this house for the first few years!

Vicki Little is a WAHM mom with a five year old son and three-year-old daughter. She publishes an online e-newsletter, Aurora Macaroni Kid at www.aurora.macaronikid.com.