Just after I told Crusty the news, he insisted I go with him to meet his parents.

What fun. Morning sickness hit-HARD-while we were there, and I had to go to hospital. While there, I almost lost Fox.

I'd been pregnant twice before my daughter was born. When I lost the first two, test were run, and I was told I would probably have a hard time getting pregnant. They even tried fertility drugs-no pregnancy.

We went to an adoption agency, we told them we would like to give a child a home. (At that time, I thought I was the one with the problem-I hadn't found out yet about the guy I'd foolishly married, and thought I had to make the marriage work. Something like-"made my bed and had to lie in it...")

After reviewing our interviews, my medical records, and some things we'd done for other children, we were fast tracked.

The morning I found out I was carrying her, the adoption agency called to say they had a healthy, white baby girl they would like to place with us.

The doctor scheduled me for a c-section because I'd had one with Fox's sister in 1977, and then the incision was used again in '79-he was reluctant to chance a labour. I pleaded, somehow I knew I would be able to deliver this baby without complications. He said no.

I had something like a stroke during the 7th month. After tests, I was told I had hypoglycemia.

I was also put on the list that got me into the doctor's office, jabbed, poked, examined; it seems as though it was twice a week after the sort of stroke.

No-one was terribly optimistic that I would deliver a living child. Except me, and God.

Crusty was so sure I wouldn't that he refused to buy so much as a bottle or diaper; Fox came home to a laundry basket 'bassinet' and some hand me downs Crusty's sister sent-"just in case."

I suppose I could look it up, but I am fairly sure it was a Thursday afternoon that I checked into the hospital after a Pizza Hut lunch with Crusty and my daughter.

It was so hot, and parched. North West Florida was in the middle of a deep drought, and I joked to my daughter and Crusty that it would really be strange if Fox's birth coincided with the same sort of drought breaking rains my daughter's birth had.

I knew I was in labour on Friday night, the hospital sent me home; early Saturday night they sent me out to walk across the Golden Gate Bridge and back in hopes that I would finally get things moving. It was hot even on the bridge, San Francisco was in the middle of a prolonged drought. We were rationing water even to brush teeth...

Around 2pm on Sunday, they realized I was in trouble-I think the seizures really scared them more than me, and I was rushed to surgery.

I came to on Wednesday; it was raining, and had been, they told me, since shortly after she was born. It was still raining when we went home, a week later.

Crusty took my daughter home, and I settled in with a book to wait for the morning, and Fox.