Concepcion and the First Year Teacher

My very first year of teaching I learned a great deal more than I ever learned in a classroom.  The first day of school I assigned Spanish names for the students to set the mood.  It was something I learned when I was attending classes on How to be a Spanish Teacher the University of Alabama.  I had a list of boy and girl names for them to choose from.  If they had a name that translated...I allowed them to keep that name...otherwise they picked a name from the list.  Kristie, a cute little tenth grader in the back, chose the name Concepion.  Long about September Concepcion informed me that she had gotten married over the weekend.  She went on to tell me why, at age fifteen she had made this decision..you see she was pregnant and due in mid-March.  We watched this tiny little fifteen year old get larger and larger as the year progressed.  By January some of my boys took a desk a part and made it into a table and chair in their Vo-Ag class.  Now...quick classroom note....my classroom was in a single wide trailer...with a toilet/sink...that leaked unmercifully.  One day in mid March....I was teaching and I heard my sink begin to leak....I turned to cut the main water off when I noticed Kristie in the back holding her hand up.  I called on her and she told me it was time.  I responded to her remark by looking at my wristwatch and telling her we still had 27 minutes of class and turned around to cut the water off....but when I stepped into the tiny bathroom...there was no water leak.....and when I returned to the main part of the room...I noticed a huge puddle near Kristie....and she was frantically waving...and speaking louder, "Senora, it is time!"  She pointed to her baby bump and I saw the movement of a baby coming into the world.  It was at that time that the Keystone Cops would have been thrilled.  I sent a kid to get the principal and one to get her husband (who was sixteen and drove a Monster truck) in the Vo Ag building.  The husband sent back the message that their doctors appointment was not until 3:30.  I grabbed the students shirt collar and told him to go get the boy....and not to come back without him.  He succeeded the second time...and daddy-to-be and the Monster truck pulled up next to the trailer. Four boys worked to get Kristie into the cab of the truck that I could walk under.....and off they went with the principal following them in his car.  The hospital was 20 minutes from the school and they got there in 12.  The dad pulled into the ER entrance and the nurses came out....(I had called them and told them she was coming...and so was the baby).  By the time they got her into the wheelchair...the baby was crowning.  Their little girl was born 27 minutes after they arrived.  The doctor did not even make it.  Needless to say....Concepcion is NOT on my list of girls names anymore.  I can't do that again!  Happy Monday!