Today is Jack's 19th birthday. This is the day, I always tell him, that made me a mother, so it will always be the most special of all the other days of the year. Other birthdays and days are important, but this is the most important day...really ever.
Coincidentally, it also happens to be my grandfather's, my grandmother's, and their first child, my Aunt Ottilie's, birthday. So, October 3rd was already a special day for me and all my relatives on my father's side. When I was pregnant with him, my due date was October 15th. Even so, all my relatives would say "maybe you'll have him on October 3rd!" I would just smile, because it seemed very unlikely. This may be a good time to tell you about Jack's birth story.
On October 2nd, 1995, I had my 38th week check-up, and I was kind of in pain. In fact, without giving TMI, I had been in labor since early in the morning of September 30th, so this this was my 3rd full day of labor, and I literally did not sleep at all the night before. I was having pretty severe pains every 30-45 minutes, enough to wake me up/prevent me from sleeping, but it never really progressed. On that Monday morning, I called the doctor, because something was clearly up, and made an appointment. Of course, by the time I got down there with my sister Lisa, it wasn't too bad, and the pains were only 10 minutes apart, so my amazing ob/gyn told me to go home (really, he is amazing), lay down, rest, and call if the pains got 5 minutes apart.
That night, at 6 pm, I was lying in bed, pretty much unaware that the amazing pain I was having was sufficiently bad that even though the pains were only 6-7 minutes apart, I should have called the doctor/gone back to the hospital. Peter Jennings from ABCNews broke in and announced that the OJ Simpson jury had reached its verdict. I had followed the trial, thought he was pretty clearly guilty as all get out (although it took me several weeks to believe he was capable of doing that), so when I heard the news, I called out for Chris, who was downstairs. Poor Chris---he came bounding up the stairs, thinking this was the time to go. Instead, I told him that the OJ Simpson jury had reached its verdict. I think he was going to have a heart attack.
I pretty much don't remember the rest of the evening. I was definitely out of it. I just remember having these intense pains every 6 minutes, and being semi-conscious, and definitely not capable of making decisions for myself. I later asked Chris why he didn't make me go to the hospital because of the incredible pain I was in, and he said I told him "no, not until they are 5 minutes apart." I am a rule follower, I might have told you.
Nature took over, and at around 11:15 that night, my water broke, and I went into immediate every-45-seconds-apart-labor. It was crazy. I remember my husband trying to get me into our station wagon, and I literally could not sit down because of the pain. He put the back down in the station wagon, and he made me lay down in the back. I distinctly remember thinking as we drove down Broad Street that I was going to die. No one could be in that much pain and survive. I was going to die.
I deliver all my babies at Pennsylvania Hospital in Center City Philadelphia, which is about 30 minutes away with no traffic. Well, there was no traffic that night, and we got to the Emergency Room at midnight. I remember a male, either a nurse or doctor, asking me if I could walk into the ER (NO!!), and did I mind him checking me (you know what that means, right?) right there, because they were seeing if I had time to get to Labor and Delivery, or did they need to deliver me in the ER. Apparently, they decided I had the time (I really didn't), to get me to L&D, and I was wheeled into an elevator.
Back in the 70's and 80's, I can remember people talking about natural childbirth, and how it was so great. I may have been young, but I knew that was absurd. Back in the 70's and 80's, mankind had progressed to the point that we had discovered pain medications. Why would you choose to be in pain, if there is pain medication?? I knew, even when I was 12, that when the time came to give birth, I wanted to be doped up. Big time. Immediately.
I knew from experience, that if you ask for pain medication, they will give it to you if you are forceful. Believe me, I was forceful. What I didn't know is that if you are fully ready to give birth, there is no time to get the anaesthiologist there, because your body is giving birth. It is literally expelling a baby on its own. Until the birth of my 4th child in a hallway, it never really occurred to me that for thousands and thousands of years, women gave birth naturally, not in stirrups, not pushing and breathing....and that eventually, mother nature is such that the baby will just come out.
Nonetheless, when I arrived outside the ER, before I would give my name, I said I wanted an epidural. I saw some smiles, but I thought, at that point, they were taken by how nicely I had kept myself together through my first pregnancy, and how good I looked for not having slept for 3 days (I forgot they didn't know). When they put me on the gurney, and put me in the elevator, and I was screaming I wanted an epidural, one kind nurse finally said to me "Leslie, you are not getting an epidural...you are having a baby in the next 5 minutes."
I screamed a word that back then I didn't say often (I say it way too much now), and before I knew it, I was meeting a man who identified himself as Dr. Debbs (my regular ob was not on call--who knew?) Surely, Dr. Debbs seemed like a nice man--he would give me an epidural. No such luck. He told me to push, because he could see the baby's head. What the #$*!. This is not what I had planned, at all.
Our baby was born on October 3, 1995, at 12:30 am, about 20 minutes after we arrived. When they immediately asked me if I wanted to hold the baby, I realized that I had an extremely incompetent group of people helping me deliver my baby. First of all, there were still several people between my legs doing things that still required attention, and which still really hurt, and I hadn't had so much as an aspirin to take away the pain. Second, I immediately started shivering uncontrollably, and I could not have held my baby if I had wanted to...which I didn't. I was still in disbelief that I had delivered a baby, without medication, 12 days early, on October 3rd, without medication, and that it was a boy!!! I had 5 sisters...who knew anything about boys??
Later that day, I was with the baby in our room (Jack was "the baby" for almost 48 hours before I finally agreed on Jack as his name, because every Jack I know drinks too much...), when they announced OJ Simpson had been acquitted of those murder charges. But by then, I was in baby heaven.
Jack was the easiest baby, ever. I was inexperienced, and I had no help, but Jack made having him as a baby very easy. He was pleasant and easy-going. He and I were a couple for 22 months until his little sister, Anna, came along.
So, while he is celebrating his birthday, I celebrate the day, 19 years ago, on when he made me a mother.
So adorable....red hair, adorable smile, blue eyes!!
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