November 30

This is a very important day in my life for two reasons. The first is that it’s my daughter’s birthday. Like most mothers,  I remember it vividly. At around four o’clock in the afternoon of the day before, a Thursday, I was changing the sheets. I picked up the corner of the mattress, and my water broke. I called my girlfriend, Phoebe Mueller, because a woman wants to tell another woman, and then my husband. He was in the Army and stationed at Fort Riley, Kansas. Being the Old Man’s Jeep driver ( a highly prized position) he was allowed to leave the base and come home to take me to the hospital.

That would be Irwin Army Hospital at the Fort. I had my overnight case packed and ready with everything I read in a book that I would need. That included a library copy of Anne Boleyn, by Norah Lofts.

From the time I realized I was expecting, I read every book on the subject of pregnancy that I could get my hands on. Back then, that was precious few. I thought I knew everything I needed to know. Surprise!!

The books said I might have morning sickness for a few weeks in the first trimester. I had morning sickness, afternoon sickness, evening sickness, and keep-a-bucket-by-the-side-of-the-bed middle of the night sickness. In my seventh month, I hadn’t gained a pound. The endless barfing  finally stopped and I gained eight pounds in the last eight weeks.

At the hospital, I checked in and among other papers, signed a form that said no matter what went wrong, I couldn’t sue Uncle Sam. A young doctor looked me over and said I wasn’t dilated and wasn’t in labor, but they would allow me to stay for the night. They sent my husband home and said they would call him when things started. They put me in a room with two beds. The other bed was unoccupied. I put on the hospital gown and was submitted to the ghastly things they did to all prospective mothers, shaven, given an enema, and had my body exposed to a number of people. I’m not sure all of them were medical personnel.

Finally alone, I took out my book. I finished reading about the exploits of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn around midnight and drifted off to sleep. I was awakened at three-thirty or so that morning by a unbelievably horrible pain in my butt and it didn’t let up for at least five minutes. SURPRISE! I expected the pain to be somewhere else…you know. I remembered my instructive reading, the part where it said first babies usually take about eight hours of labor to deliver. EIGHT HOURS? I’m going to die!!!!

I rang for the nurse. After a while, she showed up. I told her about the pain, and she woke the doctor. Around the time he came in, I had the second pain, which lasted another five minutes and rolled right into the next one. He took a look.

“Let’s get her to delivery,” Doctor Captain McKeever told the nurse.

In the delivery room, he held the baby in long enough to do an episiotomy, another medieval practice, and to give me a spinal. There was another gargantuan pain, and the baby stuck out its head and screamed.There are a number of impotence drugs in the stores these days that could confuse your look for the wonder pill. viagra soft pills http://appalachianmagazine.com/bobh/ For example, it’s possible to take generic viagra cipla and also from where to buy these medications from online pharmacies. Here are just some of the reasons why you should select the web based option. wholesale tadalafil Modern chiropractic is more focused on the job at hand, knowing that any other medicines http://appalachianmagazine.com/2020/02/06/breaking-dangerous-flooding-throughout-appalachian-region/ viagra purchase you take, if any, don’t interfere with Kamagra.

“It must be a girl,” McKeever said. “She’s complaining already.”

He proved to be correct. The rest of her slid out at 4:45. Total labor time, one hour, fifteen minutes. It would have been an hour but like I said, they held her in so they could practice their ancient arts.

I tried to get a look at her but they took her away for a cleaning, and it was a while before they brought her back. About that time, the spinal kicked in. Lots of good that thing did!

McKeever passed the time sewing me back together to mend the stupid episiotomy I never needed in the first place.  I was taken to my bed in a twelve-bed ward.  I was warned not to lift my head for eight hours. The stupid spinal that didn’t take effect until the delivery was over would give me a terrible headache.

They finally brought my baby to me. I couldn’t raise my head, as I was told repeatedly, but I managed to get the new-mother-unwrapping done to a point. She was too beautiful for words. Six pounds, seven ounces, nineteen inches long, her little head was perfectly round, her skin was pink,  and she had wispy, dark blonde hair. She looked perfect to me.

A long time devotee of Gone With the Wind, I named her Melanie, no middle name. Her father wanted to name her Alexandra, but he had no say in the matter, which is as it should be. He didn’t take on any of the labor pains, few though they were. Later on, the heroine of my Las Vegas mysteries made me able to give her the name of Alexandra Merritt (her great-grandmother’s maiden name) as her secret identity. Melanie doesn’t really fit her dynamic personality. Someday, I might write a book and call it, I Should Have Named Her Scarlett.

The other momentous thing about November 30, is that it’s the birthday of my precious Aunt  Fredia. No matter what, you could count on her. She had the kindest heart I ever knew, and I miss her terribly.