Even though Anthony's birthday isn't until tomorrow, I'll do my reminiscing today, because I know I will not have time to do so after school tomorrow. I will be going with Dick to the oncologist at 4:00, then in the evening I'll be going to Hamilton Arms Retirement Home to sing with some others from church.
Thirty years ago, on Monday, September 20th, my due date, I woke up at 6:00 AM, trying to decide what I would do that day. Unbelievably, I had just had all four of my wisdom teeth pulled 10 days before (a rash decision on my part, without my doctor's knowledge) and I was just beginning to feel pretty normal. About 20 minutes later I knew what I would be doing that day, when my water broke. We called Dick's mother to come for Lisa (age 2 1/2) and prepared to head to the doctor's office, since it was obvious I would not be wasting any time having this baby. At some point the phone rang, and to our dismay we discovered that Dick was to have driven school bus that morning and he had completely forgotten!! Someone else filled in.
My doctor had just recently begun doing deliveries in his office in Manheim, so since I was the "mother earth" type, and firmly believed that babies should never be separated from their mothers, that was a perfect solution for me. Anthony was born at 9:20 AM (on 9/20). An hour-and-a-half later we walked out of the office, right through the waiting room of people, showing off our newborn son. (I do confess, I felt a good deal of pride at everyone's astonished reactions.)
At home that afternoon, I remember lying in our bed with Anthony, listening to Dick on the phone downstairs telling everyone all about him, and I felt like I had never been happier in my life. Dick's mother brought Lisa to see him, and she was absolutely delighted with "her baby". Dick's mother did tell us, however, that when she had told Lisa that she has a baby brother, Lisa said, "I don't believe I want him." !! She probably thought that a few more times in the years to come!!
2 comments:
What a joyous account! There is nothing like the birth of a healthy baby, and I wanted to experience that a dozen times when I was planning my family. I am so happy for your sweet memories, and Yes, though this day marks a sorrowful milestone for me, it also marks a wondrous one as well. I had no way of knowing on that rainy September morning in 1976 that a little over six weeks earlier, in the very hospital that Samuel John was born in, a single mom had given birth to a beautiful baby girl who would become our very own Christina. It would take another seven months before she came to us, and there was a long road ahead of us before the adoption was complete, but she was God's gift to us, and to our future children, and I thank God upon every remembrance of His goodness to us!
Jean, you are something else! I don't think that I had heard that story before. You were a trooper!
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