Uh-oh.

It was 4 o’clock in the morning on Tuesday, November 20, 1984. I was suddenly wide awake, with the realization that either I was losing control of yet another bodily function … or my water broke.

It was our first pregnancy and we’d just learned how that “due date” business wasn’t exactly a money-back guarantee. Like nearly everything else in life, a child’s birthday is … a guess.

That previous afternoon was the first doctor’s visit Gary was able to attend with me. We were one day away from our due date, and I was ready to start the countdown clock. (Gary had pronounced “the baby’s done!” a few days earlier when my belly button suddenly turned into an out-ie. “It’s like one of those pop-up timers on a frozen turkey,” he proclaimed. It was November and he was ready to give thanks.)

But during our visit, the doctor explained that it could easily be another week or two before our baby was ready for birthing.

In those nine long, vomit-y months, it had never occurred to me we might not hit the mark. As Gary and I bundled back up for the drive home, I slowly pushed past my denial and asked an important question:

“Do we have time to go grocery shopping? If the baby’s not ready to be hatched, I’ve got to stay busy. Let’s go get a turkey.”

And so off we went. We piled the shopping cart high with Thanksgiving ingredients. I’d have two days to bake pies, stuff stuffing, and invite Gary’s mom and siblings.

But at 4 the next morning came the reminder that baby is in charge. Still not sure whether labor was underway, I waddled out to the kitchen and hoisted the barely-thawed turkey back into the freezer.

Then it was time to wake up Daddy.

Now when you’re a dairy farmer, you can’t just run off to the hospital at a moment’s notice. You’ve got cows to milk. So Gary hustled off to the farm and I packed an overnight bag. (The breakage of the waters was minimal, yet ongoing, so we figured our little one was, indeed, planning to keep the aforementioned appointment.)

It was a glorious day. Unusually sunny and warm for mid-November. I wore a short-sleeved cotton top and insisted Gary park far away from the Emergency Room so that we could have a nice walk across the parking lot.

That evening, Thomas Andrew was born. He was the first grandchild on both sides of the family.

The look of tenderness in Gary’s eyes brought tears to my own.

The next town over, in another hospital, a precious little girl was also born that day.

Tom met her in middle school. I remember him telling me about having lunch with a new friend one day – and that she had talked to him about the Beatles.

“Marry that girl!”

I kid you not. I thought that.

My heart fell when, a year later he told me her family was moving away. This was before the days of texting and social media.

But on their 16th birthday, she got ahold of our phone number and called Tom. He invited her to the school’s Christmas dance. And they’ve been sweethearts ever since.

I could ask “what are the chances” but I have a feeling the answer would be far more complicated than 1 in 365. After living in a house full of math-men for decades, I should know better than to be rhetorical. What’s more fun than Birthday Statistics, right?

Shortly after their wedding, as they were packing up to head west to Pasadena and NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, they were exploring rental properties online.

Tom found a great place. One catch, though. The address was Euclid Street.

“Oh, Tom, I don’t want to live on Math Street,” his wife wailed. Yes, they were made for each other.

It’s tough with them living so far away, but it’s not worrisome. We know they are happy where they are and are taking good care of each other.

For the heck of it, I looked up a list of other significant happenings on November 20 in other years:

• In 1889 Edwin Hubble was born. An American astronomer and cosmologist, he is regarded as one of the most important astronomers of all time for his discovery that many objects classified as “nebulae” were in fact galaxies beyond the Milky Way.
• On this day in 1959, the UN adopted the Declaration of the Rights of the Child.
• November 20 is Joe Biden’s birthday. It was Robert Kennedy’s birthday, too.
• In 1986, the one billionth Little Golden Book was printed. The title was The Poky Little Puppy.
• On November 20, 1998, the first component for the International Space Station was launched.

Our Californians are animal lovers, having adopted several cats over the years and their ever-vigilant Leo, the house wolf.

Apparently, Leo growled fiercely during a recent earthquake, only letting up when he’d scared off the tremor. Good dog!

Indeed, even wild animals seem drawn to them.

All these years and memories later, we thank the heavens that the stars aligned so beautifully on that November day in 1984.

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