Happy Birthday Sarah!

Marina, California, 12 January 1979:

Sarah was expected long before she was due to be born. One night in 1977 while I was asleep, I had a dream that I saw a beautiful girl about 16 years old. She had long blond hair and was dressed in white. I knew her name was Sarah. In my dream, she was knocking. The sound woke me up! Once awake, I thought about my dream and felt that she was waiting to be born to our family.

Just before Christmas 1977, I found out I was pregnant. We figured the baby was the Sarah of my dream, so I made a Christmas stocking, with the her name on it, and hung it on the fireplace by our other stockings.

My parents came to celebrate Christmas with us that year. We had not told them I was pregnant. They walked into our home, and as we were giving them a tour of the house, we got to the family room. Mom looked at the stockings, read the names, and then read "Sarah." She said, "Sarah, who's Sarah?" Then, her eyes lit up in recognition that she knew I was pregnant.

About two months later I had a miscarriage. I was not upset about it. I remembered my dream and knew Sarah would come when her time was right.

A few months after that I again found out I was pregnant. This time I was due Christmas 1978. Christmas came and went but no baby came. On New Year's Eve the doctor said he'd give me a tax deduction if I wanted to have the baby before the end of the year. I told him I'd wait until Sarah was ready.

Finally, on 12 January 1979 I went into labor. This was during the time we had no car, so I phoned my visiting teacher who was on standby. She drove Tom and me to the hospital. The doctor checked me out, told the nurse to call him when my time for delivery neared, and he headed home.

Before the doctor made it home, the nurse was calling him to come back. I asked the nurse for something for the pain. She said, I was going to be done in ten minutes and to just hang on. She was right. Sarah was born about ten minutes later.

We named her Sarah Elizabeth Werle after both of our great-grandmothers: Sarah Werle and Sarah McQuire. The Elizabeth was my grandmother's name, Elizabeth Olive (Smith) McQuire.

By the time Sarah came along I had learned to cherish every minute because babies grow so fast. So there were days I just sat for hours holding her for a long, long time. It was a precious time and she was a precious baby.

The Sequel: About 1995 when Sarah was 16, I went with our ward Young Women to the temple to help them perform baptisms for the dead. As I was there I happened to glance up as Sarah approached the font. She was dressed in white. Her blond hair was long and straight. Then, I remembered my dream. The young woman I saw in my dream looked just like Sarah did that day at the temple. Dreams really do come true. It's true.