1974

My water broke at midnight, greeting August 3, 1974, with the culmination of a long-awaited birth.  Awash with both amniotic fluid and high expectation, I woke a soundly sleeping Bill with the news that our baby was on the way!  I had been eyeing my dutifully packed overnight bag for over a week.  Finally I could actually use the thing!  My very mild contractions were erratic, but my doctor advised us to head for Methodist Hospital in  Dallas, a forty-five minute drive from our home.  There was a full moon smiling at us from overhead as we wondered if our child would be a boy or a girl.  How long would labor be?  When do we call our parents?

We arrived at the hospital in the wee hours of the morning expecting to be the only couple there, but labor and delivery was full.  Seems the fatness of the evening orb had awakened other babies to life on August 3. Bill and I were neophytes to the birthing process.  We had taken all the right classes, but this was the real thing; and, on the way was our actual, breathing, crying baby, not some slippery plastic doll.  We had imagined for months what the moment would be like when we met the new human being that our coming together had produced - this person who had been kicking against the darkness and ever-increasing closeness of my womb.  We had listened to the baby's beating heart and were familiar with the bulges caused by the child's rolling and punching in my body.  Soon there would be a tiny face with eyes looking into ours - a vulnerable little life that we were responsible for shaping.  Wonderful and terrifying, at once.

Aside from the continuing seeping of the amniotic fluid, there were no other signs of labor - no contractions at all.  Dr. Wilke, my obstetrician, told me to settle in and he would see me later in the morning.  Bill stepped outside while the night nurse prepped me for delivery then took me to a semi-dark labor room. Vile cursings and blood-curdling screams emanated from a woman down the hall who sounded as though she were being brutally violated.  Primal, uninhibited, the woman pushed against her pain in a gushing forth of agony that made me clinch my teeth to keep from crying out in fear.  "Am I going to do that?" I asked the nurse, gripping her arm and turning her toward me.

"You might," she said, too matter-of-factly.

"Oh, no," I whispered as my terror nearly choked me.

"You know, honey," the nurse continued, "I cannot have children. I have always wanted one of my own.  So, if you wind up screaming and cursing in order to deliver one into this world, that's okay.  Just remember, I would like to have a baby any way I could."  Her smile was matronly, if not patronizing, as she patted my hand then left me there to wait for my first birth pangs.

At seven o'clock on the morning of August 3, Dr. Wilke came in and pronounced me "not dilated at all."  No contractions - as if my body had been as unnerved by the sounds of birthing down the hall as my heart had.  Even the pitocin drip that should have generated contractions served only to irritate the amniotic sac to fully bursting from its confines, leaving me awash, but not with pain.

Bill had slept in the father's room all night - on the floor beneath the telephones.  As early as he dared, he had called both sets of parents with the news of my hospitalization.  So it was that at eight o'clock that morning Mother and Daddy showed up in the labor room with a crystal vase filled with roses.  "Happy birthday, precious," my Mother said.

"Oh, my goodness!  I forgot completely that it is my birthday!"

"It looks like you will have a birthday present today, for sure!" said Daddy, eyes dancing, huge smile.

That thought had not seriously crossed my mind.  Sharing a birthday with my baby would indeed be a gift. Made me wonder how alike we would be. 

Afraid to go very far lest I should deliver while they were away, my parents hovered close to labor and delivery with Bill all that day. By mid-afternoon it was clear that my body did not want to make way for this baby on its own.  Fearing infection, Dr. Wilke made the decision to perform a C-section.  He left me for a moment to consider the option.  I felt tears of disappointment burning to the surface until I remembered the words of the night nurse.  "I would like to have a baby any way I could."  Blinking back self-pity, concentrating on the joy of holding my newborn, and praying for strength, I readied myself mentally for surgery.  When my doctor returned to the room, I had only two questions for him:  "Could I still breastfeed? Could I stay awake during the operation so that I could experience the birth fully?"

Yes to both.

As I was prepared for surgery, Bill called his parents, who soon joined mine in the waiting room.  By then it was late afternoon.  My parents had anxiously paced and waited for almost ten hours, so the news of surgery was disconcerting.  They held hands with Bill and prayed.  I had no idea that I was quickly becoming a celebrity with the hospital staff because none of them had heard of a woman staying awake during a C-section before.  My adrenaline was rushing as the nurses wheeled me into delivery.  The fluid that had been injected into my spine first warmed then numbed my body from my rib cage downward.  A large metal halo was erected in front of me and covered with a sheet so that I could not actually see the operation as it progressed.  I was listening for only one sound - a baby's cry.  That was all that mattered as I lay there blind to the purpose of all the bustling of medical personnel about me.  The anesthesiologist was seated near my head, to my left, ready to immediately rescue me with some sleeping potion should I for some reason begin to feel the cutting and suturing.  Anticipation trumped anxiety.  My birthday gift was about to appear, an offering from my own body.

Heather.  Eight pounds, seven ounces.  Little bald head.  Perfectly arched, full red lips.  Already curious, looking around.  No crying.  She seemed to be taking in her surroundings as if to say: "So, this is life. Hmmm."  Before they weighed and measured her, the nurses popped her little butt and made her squeal.  The violence of it seemed unnecessary to me, and it made me wince.  There would be enough in her new world to make her cry eventually; it seemed a bit early for pain.

I watched, transfixed, as the team of nurses wiped the creamy vernix from Heather's soft pink skin, suctioned fluid from her lungs, then wrapped her tightly in a blanket as my doctor closed my incisions.  It all seemed to transpire in one breathtaking moment.  My eyes could not be sated, so great was their hunger to take in every detail of this wonder from my womb.

Meanwhile, "It's a girl!" was announced in the waiting area, and Bill was summoned back to greet me as I was wheeled out of surgery with our daughter in my arms.  The staff stopped the gurney so that father could be properly introduced to daughter.  Heather's little eyes were closed tight against the brightness of the lights, and Bill's first question as he touched her tiny fist was: "When do babies open their eyes?"  Guffawing nurses broke the magic of the moment. "She's not a puppy, son," cackled one.  Ahhh, we had so much to learn.

Mother and Daddy had moved home from Germany for this, their first grandchild.  On Christmas of 1973, we had traveled to Corpus Christi for the holidays to be with my sister and her husband.  Mother and Daddy had come from Europe, and Bill and I could not wait to present our gift to them.  At a Woolworth's, I had found a tiny plastic baby doll which we wrapped in a large box and tied with an extravagant bow.  We knew they would not guess its contents, but we were sure there would be no greater gift we could bestow on them.  Along with the doll I had written a little riddle in the form of a poem so that they would have to guess the significance of their present.  Of course, that was unnecessary, for when they saw the toy baby, they guessed the real one.

Mother and Daddy came to our home to help take care of Heather and me. Mother had brought me a rocking chair, but it was Daddy who would steal Heather from her cradle and sit for hours, holding her in his warm, ample arms, and glide back and forth as he stared lovingly down at her. Awed, he fell in love with his tiny progeny.  The tender wonder belied the potential treachery of a baby in his caress.  Our first baby, his first grandchild, was a gift to be shared.  Though Daddy's penchant was for boys, had we known the "other" father in those days, even our daughters would not have been "safely" placed in his embrace.

I miss the father who read to my children while they sat comfortably on his lap, who tickled them to overflowing laughter, who played endless games with them when they asked, "Just one more time?" Granddaddy.  I miss Granddaddy.