9

Nine years ago today I gained an enormous amount of extra respect for a lady who I already considered to be the most remarkable human on earth.

Nine years ago today I stood around feeling somewhat useless as Pauline gave birth to Emily. Through quite a long labour, Pauline refused any drugs or pain relief of any kind to give birth naturally to our little girl. I held Pauline’s hand, rubbed her back, mopped her forehead, passed her anything she asked for yet still knew that I was nowhere close to understanding what she was experiencing at that time.

At the end of all that effort we held in our arms the most perfect, beautiful child we could imagine. Around two and a half years later I stood by feeling useless again as Pauline reprised her role as super human mum by giving birth to another perfect child, James. Again, despite an incredibly painful back problem, she accepted no drugs during the delivery. (Except a couple of panadiene. As I told her then, the pain would have been laughing at two panadeine.)

Emily has continued to amaze us over the past 9 years. She is clever, beautiful and multi-talented. She takes after her mum. She has had a wonderful birthday and she’s now getting ready to go to bed for her first time as a 9 year old.

Posted by Rodney Olsen



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About the author

Rodney Olsen

Rodney is a husband, father, cyclist, blogger and podcaster from Perth Western Australia.

He has worked in radio at Perth's media ministry Sonshine for over 25 years and has previously worked at ministries such as Compassion Australia and Bible Society.

The views he expresses here are his own.

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