He was a fourth grade teacher and she a school nurse’s aide when Andrew and Sharon Blount met at work, fell in love, and married. In her subsequent search for a reliable OB/GYN practice to entrust with her medical care, Sharon discovered Tepeyac OB/GYN and embraced its pro-life principles. By the time she became pregnant with her firstborn, Matthew, she had found ample reason for confidence in the excellent medicine practiced by Tepeyac’s fine doctors.
Nine years ago, Dr. Anderson brought Matthew into the world, giving the Blount family its first son. Two years later, Micah followed, delivered by Dr. Pereira.
Dr. Cvetkovich delivered Jacob two years after that. Next, it was Dr. Pereira’s turn again—this time to deliver the now three-year-old Caleb. All four boys having been c-section deliveries, the Blounts felt reasonably sure that Caleb was destined to be the caboose at the end of their train of offspring.
Sharon and Andrew were content with their four sons, but Andrew confided to his wife that he felt their family might not yet be complete. He would have liked, he said, to be the father of a girl. Given his winning ways with school-age children of both genders and with his own sons, it was clear that he would make a wonderful dad for a daughter. The Blount boys, as well, had often expressed their desire for a baby sister. About a year ago, Sharon was jolted by the realization of just how deep that desire ran when she found her small sons–uncharacteristically united, well behaved, moved by some unknown stimulus—gathered in the back seat of the car fervently praying for a baby sister.
We all know what happened next, don’t we?
The new year will see a new balance in the male-female ratio within the Blount clan. The penultimate train car, Caleb, will be followed not by a red, but by a pink caboose when Hannah Grace Blount arrives in early January. Despite Sharon’s anxieties about a fifth gestation and c-section, her daughter has behaved like a little lady. A relatively easy pregnancy has been marked by huge accesses of energy and good humor, particularly during the second trimester. Dad, four doting brothers, and a neighborhood rife with girl playmates await her birth. Tepeyac doctors monitor Sharon carefully so that delivery will occur at just the right moment before she goes into labor. Excitement’s a-building; only a few more weeks of waiting remain.
Who says that God doesn’t heed the prayers of little children?
Update: just when we thought it was safe to say that Hannah Grace Blount, born in January 2018, was in-deed the pink caboose on the otherwise all-blue Blount train of offspring…it turned out that God had other plans. Joseph Andrew Blount was recently delivered by Dr. Anderson, result-ing in a six-to-two majority of boys over girls in the Blount household. Congratulations, Blount family!