I have to pause in our vacation musings to share today's amazing story. The Emiratis in the development program I run have to lead a business based project during their last three months prior to their graduation. One of the assessments of this phase is a presentation they need to do for their supervisor, the leadership team in their department and their mentor. These presentations are from 20-40 minutes long and are stressful. We spend a lot of time preparing and rehearsing and the participants work really hard to showcase their work.
One of today's grads is pregnant .... very pregnant ... due in just a few days pregnant so the joke all week has been that baby needs to wait until Mommy's done delivering her presentation.
Her presentation was scheduled for 10:30 so around 10:00 I went up to the classroom to make sure she had everything ready. She wasn't there so I asked a couple of her colleagues where she was. Her friend said, "she's coming."
"I hope so, her presentation is in less than 30 minutes. Why so late?"
"She's having some pain and thinks the baby might be coming."
oh ...
"But she's planning to come?"
"Yeah, no problem. She's coming now."
Sure enough, a few minutes later she arrived and got things set up for her presentation. I asked how she was and she said okay and I joked that baby needs to stay put until after the presentation.
She delivered .... (no, the story isn't THAT good) ... an excellent presentation. Really her best run through ever. After the applause and congratulations she calmly packed up her belongings and said, "I'm going to go over to the hospital now. I'm pretty sure the baby is coming."
Not quite believing this, I laughed, wished her well and asked her to keep us all posted. This was around 11:15am.
It's now 9:15pm and she just sent me a text saying she delivered a baby girl.
One of today's grads is pregnant .... very pregnant ... due in just a few days pregnant so the joke all week has been that baby needs to wait until Mommy's done delivering her presentation.
Her presentation was scheduled for 10:30 so around 10:00 I went up to the classroom to make sure she had everything ready. She wasn't there so I asked a couple of her colleagues where she was. Her friend said, "she's coming."
"I hope so, her presentation is in less than 30 minutes. Why so late?"
"She's having some pain and thinks the baby might be coming."
oh ...
"But she's planning to come?"
"Yeah, no problem. She's coming now."
Sure enough, a few minutes later she arrived and got things set up for her presentation. I asked how she was and she said okay and I joked that baby needs to stay put until after the presentation.
She delivered .... (no, the story isn't THAT good) ... an excellent presentation. Really her best run through ever. After the applause and congratulations she calmly packed up her belongings and said, "I'm going to go over to the hospital now. I'm pretty sure the baby is coming."
Not quite believing this, I laughed, wished her well and asked her to keep us all posted. This was around 11:15am.
It's now 9:15pm and she just sent me a text saying she delivered a baby girl.
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