8 Years Ago......

We were married on January 2001, and at that time, we had a plan that we would enjoy our newly wed life for a year, and then, we would think about having a child. My mom told me that if we were not ready for a child, we needed to avoid “doing anything" during  the "12th to 18th days" , and we followed this rule strictly.

On the Memorial Weekend of 2001, we went with Tong-Sing Fellowship to Yosemite, and we were two of very few people who were able to climb up to the big waterfall. When we got home, I realized that my period was late, and I got very nervous. I refused to buy the testing tool because I was in shock and tried not to believe that it really happened.

Well, finally, I adjusted my emotion and accepted this gift from God. Thank God that I didn't experience any discomfort throughout the pregnancy, and everything went so well. I went to LA and Las Vegas during the Labor Day weekend because it's the last trip that we could enjoy "alone".

The Due date of Ha was 02/02/02, so his nickname would be "雙雙”。The doctor was not able to tell if it's a boy or a girl, and for some reason, we just knew that it's a girl, so we prepared a girl's name for the baby, which is Esther. We were not ready for boy's name yet because we couldn't decide between Justin, Joshua and Wayne, but we were not worried since it would be a girl anyways.

02/02 was a Saturday, nothing happened. 02/03 was a Super Bowl Sunday, still, nothing happened. The doctor said that she would need to induce the labor if the baby doesn't come out in few days. 02/04, after a good night sleep, I started to feel the contractions around 7am, and later, we went to the hospital. I brought my CD player and 讚美之泉 CDs because I planned not to have the Epidural, and singing was a good way to ease my pain. I wanted to experience the real pain that a woman needed to take due to Adam and Eve's sin against God.

Singing and Praising did help, but at the last hour before giving birth, it's too painful to sing. Thank God that Ha was not a big baby, so it's not very hard to push him out. He was out around 8:20pm. Well, speaking of "him", when the doctor announced that "It's a boy", I was just in shock and speechless. It's good that Stephen's mind was still very clear, so he said "Joshua" immediately, and that's his name. ( I didn't get the chance to chip in my preference at that time, but I like this name now.)