Last year, when Maura first got sick, I had just started student teaching.  Imagine student teaching, while your husband is doing his first year of teaching (and your health insurance is connected to that job) and then you are told that your child can no longer go to daycare and instead will need to go to the hospital for daily treatments for an undetermined amount of time.  At this point, I assumed that teaching would fall to the wayside.  All the work and time gone, all the tuition money owed back to the school.  So on top of getting some awful news concerning our daughters health, there was a bit of stress.  At this point, I had only known my cooperating teacher for 4 weeks.  I already knew she was an amazing teacher, mother, person to name a few, but I had no idea the amount of compassion, empathy, and trust that one person could show someone else that they hardly knew.  She helped me come up with a plan that allowed me to finish student teaching and also gave me the flexibility to be the one who did the majority of Maura’s hospital treatments (along with my mom and dad who were also amazing…).  I did finish student teaching and even ended up with my first teaching job working along side my cooperating teacher, talk about good luck!  Anyway, why tell this story now?  Well, I have never had the chance to really thank her for her kindness and support.  I’m hoping these pictures of her new little one and family can be a good start to a proper thank you for all she has done for me.