Happy Birthday, Babygirl.  

Two years ago . . .

I woke up on Labor Day and decided that I must catch up on the ironing. I was nine months pregnant and due in three days. My husband went to the office for a few hours to get caught up on work and planned to come home after lunch to take the boys to the swimming pool. I showered and got busy ironing and doing laundry.

When I finished the ironing, I decided to tidy up the main bathroom. Then I thought I should clean the toilets and sinks. I figured I may as well vacuum my room since the vacuum cleaner was upstairs. Then I noticed the dusty lampshades near by bed and vacuumed those, too. Then I dusted my entire room as well. Finally I realized it was close to lunchtime and went downstairs to put a frozen pizza in the oven. An enormously pregnant woman does not care if her already alive children must subsist on frozen pizza. She just does what she must to get by.

While I was in the kitchen (cleaning it while the pizza cooked), I noticed what seemed to be fairly regular cramps. I hesitated to call them “contractions” since I was still three days from my due date–my other baby hadn’t been born until 9 days past his due date–so I just worked right through them. They were about four minutes apart, though, which I noted on the kitchen clock. At 1 p.m., the pizza was ready and I fed the kids. I made a batch of chocolate “no-bake” cookies to take the the pool later on. Then I made myself a tuna sandwich and got on-line for a few minutes to catch up on email. The contractions continued on steadily every four or five minutes.

My husband came home. He planned to take the boys to the swimming pool since Labor Day was the final day it was opened. He’d leave at 2 p.m. and I intended to stay home and rest until 4 p.m. when we planned to have a little cook-out with our friends. At about 1:45 p.m., I told him I was having contractions but that I didn’t think they were really labor. He offered to stay home, but I said, “No, just go.” I really thought they would slow down if I took a bath and laid down. My other labor lasted 43 hours and came and went, lollygagged, really.

I called the midwife at 2 p.m. and told her that I was having these fairly regular contractions, but that I intended to rest and see if I could make them go away. We discussed that “real labor” would mean that the contractions would progress in some way–they’d get stronger, closer together, more intense. I told her I’d call her back if I couldn’t make them stop.

2 p.m.: Ran a warm bath, sat back, relaxed. Contractions continued.

2:30 p.m. With great effort, I lift my pregnant body out of the bath. I relax on my left side and watch the Labor Day episodes of “A Baby Story”. Just for hoots, I decide to time contractions. They are now two to three minutes apart, sometimes four and last a minute usually. I vaguely remember that the length of the contractions matters more than the space between them.

3:00 p.m.: After half an hour, I grab “The Birth Book” to find out what I can about the length of contractions. I still can’t decide whether to call the midwife, but contractions are starting to hurt. I’m breathing through them, sitting on my labor ball in the bathroom. The book says contractions closer than four minutes and longer than a minute mean it’s really labor.

3:30 p.m.: I decide to call the midwife, but now I’ve started crying during contractions. Just when I compose myself, another contraction starts. I page her. When she calls back, I answer, “Hello,” and then have to say, “Just a minute,” and put down the phone while I’m having a contraction. I tell her how close they are and that I don’t know why I’m sobbing during them. She says she’ll come and assess me.

I decide to go downstairs and wash the lunch dishes. But on the way, I see the disaster area in my boys’ bedroom. I stop and crawl around, picking up toys and clothes and cleaning. I stop every two minutes to have a contraction. I decided to stop crying and now I’m talking to myself through each one: “this is the last time I’ll have this contraction” and “it’s all right . . . it’s all right” and “I can do this” and “see, it’s over” . . . Since the vacuum is still upstairs, I vacuum and put clean sheets on their bed.

4:00 p.m.: When I take the vacuum downstairs, I see that the living room is a bit messy. So I tidy it up. I kick plastic army soldiers to one spot so I don’t have to bend over too many times. I put the couch cushions back into the couch and straighten the pillows. I kneel at the coffee table and hold on and moan during contractions. I sit in the chair and watch out the window and breathe. I figure the midwife will be here by 4:15 p.m. or 4:30 p.m. I can make it until she arrives.

The contractions don’t ease up, no matter what I position I try, and I try everything: I lay on the bed, I hold on to the wall, I kneel, I lay on the ground, I sit in a chair, I walk, I lay my head on the cool kitchen counter while I grip the edges of it. My dog, Greta, is crated and barks at me when I moan in the kitchen. I realize I can’t possibly stand at the sink to wash dishes and settle for filling a waterbottle with ice and water. I go upstairs.

4:30 p.m.: The midwife arrives and I hear the doorbell, but I’m in the middle of a contraction, so it takes me a minute to get downstairs. I tell her that if this is not actually labor, I’ve changed my mind and I no longer intend to have a baby.

We go upstairs and I have a few contractions before she actually checks me. I lay down and study her face and think “I’m probably not even dilated at all.” So, I’m shocked when she tells me I’m definitely in labor; I’m at 4 cm. She wants to leave her hand there and feel the strength of the contractions. At the end of the next contraction, she tells me I am now 5 cm and I’m going to have a baby!

5:00 p.m. We are trying to get the birth tub filled with water. She has to get the hose from outdoors where it’s stored (in a special box). I was not prepared at all to actually have a baby. The tub is set up, but the hoses are still outside. I am no help, because everytime I have a contractions, I fling myself to the ground and moan and writhe. This happens every two minutes.

She calls her assistant and her student midwife. I call my sister, who tells my mother and calls my other sister. I call my labor support people, but I can’t reach one and leave a message. The other lives 2 hours away and I tell her that she needn’t hurry, but that I am in labor. My husband calls from the pool and I tell him I am very definitely going to have a baby, but that he should keep the kids at the pool as long as possible. All of these phone calls are interrupted by hard contractions in which I throw myself to the ground or the bed and moan. I hear my midwife telling her assistant on the phone that I am having “whopper” contractions every two minutes apart.

5:30 p.m.: The student midwife has arrived. I am now moaning through my contractions. They call it “vocalizing,” in Birthing From Within, and that’s the chapter that I skimmed through, confident that I would handle this labor as I handled my previous labor: stoically, silently, with steady breathing and counting and hand-holding.

But these contractions are nothing like my prior experience. These are knock-me-down-without-warning contractions. These are roller-coaster-at-50-miles-an-hour contractions. These are prize-fighter-hit-me-in-the-gut contractions. I cannot find any relief, despite position changes. At last, the pool is full enough and I get in. The contractions do not ease up or slow down. I clutch the sides of the pool and moan. I ask my midwife how much closer the contractions will get. She tells me this is it! They won’t get closer. I am so relieved.

The labor is nothing like my first labor. Instead of easing into each contraction and breathing as it peaks, I enter each contraction full-force, no time to breathe, no time to visualize. I haven’t lit my candle, I haven’t turned on music. There is no time. I merely hang on to the pool, relax my body in the water and holler. I am impressed with the variety of screams and yells and hollers and moans and groans and whoops that I make. I sound very much as if I’m at an amusement park, on the scariest, upside-down ride going fast, really, really fast.

6 p.m.: My mom and sister arrive. I’m between contractions, so I look up at them calmly and say, “Hi. I’m having really hard contractions and I’m going to scream in a minute. Don’t be alarmed.” Then I float on my side and begin screaming, really screaming like Drew Barrymore in “Scream.” I am aware of them getting cameras set up and between contractions, I tell my sister it could still be awhile and not to take too many pictures of me just screaming.

6:15 p.m.: I hear the phone and realize it’s my husband, but I can’t stop screaming anyway. They tell me he’s on his way.

6:15 – 6:30 p.m.: I ask, “Do you think it’s going to be soon?” and the midwife offers to check me. I get out of the pool and she tells me I’m at 8 cm and will soon be pushing. When I get back in, the contractions have changed and now at the end of each one, I can feel pressure and I realize my body is pushing. My vocalizing changes with each push.

For about eight contractions, I know that the baby is coming. I reach down and can feel the bag of waters nearly bulging out. I tell the midwife I can feel it “and that means the baby is right there, too, right?” I ask with pitiful hope, but severe doubt. I’m pretty sure no baby will ever come. She assures me that it is. A few more contractions and I say, “Do you think I should change positions?” and the midwife says, “You can do whatever you want. You can get out if you want.” And I say, “No, I don’t want to get out. I don’t want to get out. I don’t want to get out.” I decide to get on my knees.

I position myself on my knees, with my arms and head leaning on my bed. When the contraction starts, I feel a pop, then I feel the baby move down and begin to crown. I yell, “The baby’s coming!” On the next contraction, I feel the head move out and the body begin to emerge. I yell, “GET THE BABY” several times because I am pretty sure that the baby will float out and no one will notice. The next contraction, the baby is out.

I flip over and the baby is in my arms. We’re all rubbing its back. It looks so little! Finally, someone says, “What kind of baby is it?” and I say, “I’m going to check!” and I turn it over on its back and see that it’s a girl! I yell, “IT’S a GIRL!” and my mom squeals and we all cheer and the baby cries.

Ten minutes later, my husband arrives.

And that’s the story of Babygirl’s arrival. She was born at 6:52 p.m., after less than 6 hours of active labor. She weighed 8 pounds, 8 ounces, was 21 inches long. She doesn’t have much hair, but she has long fingers and toes and is surely the most beautiful baby ever.

And now, I blinked and she is two years old. Happy Birthday, Babygirl!

My dad, his brother, sister and cousins, during the 1950s.  

My dad was born on this date in 1942. He was a war-time baby, born while his father was serving overseas during World War II. I have no idea where my grandfather was stationed, nor what he did. Such are the perils of having a father who did not speak much of his past and of living thousands of miles from my grandparents.

Once, during a college break, my dad took me to the local bakery for donuts. I probably had an apple fritter and he probably had a lot of coffee. Out of the clear blue, he began to tell me about the last time his father ever hit him. My dad said he grabbed a shotgun and pointed it at my grandfather and said, “If you ever hit me again, I’ll kill you.” After that, my grandfather never touched him again.

I heard whispers that my grandfather was an alcoholic. It was hard for me to imagine this quiet, gruff, slow-moving man as a raging, violent alcoholic, because by the time I knew him, he was worn out and broken and concerned mostly about the production of his vegetable garden. I did witness him whacking a catfish to death in a utility sink once, but that’s really beside the point.

We only visited his house in Ohio a time or two–once when my dad sent my mom on a car-trip with us four children (my sister was 3, my other sister was 10, I was 11, my brother was 12). My mother was under strict orders from my dad not to tell anyone that he intended to divorce her. Their relationship was so distorted, that she agreed to this deception, for some reason and off we went, stuffed into our blue Renault, driving across the country. The only serious mishap we had was outside of Spokane, Washington, when my mother grew so distracted while making sandwiches as she drove that she ran into the guardrail along the freeway. I remember banging my head hard against the window and everyone screaming, but we were fine. Just a scrape and a dent along the side of the car. She didn’t tell my dad about this accident until we got home.

So, we drove and drove–before the days of Gameboys and DVD players in cars. We stopped at Wall Drug Store in South Dakota (or North Dakota–it’s so pathetic that I can’t keep them straight). We saw Mt. Rushmore. I remember nothing else of the trip, other than the small bear/monkey I bought that was able to suck its thumb. I carried this little stuffed animal with me during the rest of the trip. I also remember that I wore rainbow toe-kneesocks witn pockets on them during this trip. I was very fashionable for an 11 year old.

We stayed with my grandparents in their drafty house, which smelled of mothballs and stale food. My brother was traumatized for many years after that trip when he would recall how Grandma Chloe (pronounced KLOW, rhymes with SLOW) made tuna salad without draining the oil from the can. Let’s just say, we were all kind of grossed out by the vast quantifies of home-cooking.

My grandfather had mellowed and I have very little memory of him speaking or actually doing anything.

But this is supposed to be about my dad, isn’t it?

My dad left home when he was 18. He was already an avid ham radio operator and had an interest in the radio business. But he went to Central Bible College in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to become a minister.

He met my mother, a fellow student, and very quickly, they were engaged, then married. They were both 19. One calamity after the next occurred and before they knew what hit them, they were college drop-outs and the parents of a baby with another on the way. My brother was born when they were 20 and I was born 16 months later. My sister was born 16 months after that, so by the time my dad was 24, he was the father of three children. By then, he didn’t even attend church with us. His faith had taken a major beating by the hardships of life.

He couldn’t seem to find just the right job and if he didn’t quit, he was fired. He worked in a jello factory, he plucked chickens, he sold china door to door, he worked as a disc jockey, he worked in a meat market. He fixed televisions, he did manual labor, he sold stuff. They moved a lot–twenty-five times in five years–and not just from one street to the next. They lived in Wisconsin, Kansas, Montana, Minnesota, Wisconsin again and finally Washington state, where my dad finally landed a job he deemed worthy of him. He was a ship-to-shore radio operator. He worked graveyard, midnight to eight in the morning. He held this job for thirteen years and then the company closed down his station and laid him off.

Which happened right after I had qualified for a full four-year scholarship through the company. Bummer for me.

My dad was a creative soul with an analytical, logical mind. So many things interested him–SCUBA diving, hiking in the mountains, visiting Russian ships in the ports of Seattle, building computers from kits, fixing radios, televisions, anything electronic, ham radio, building things (a swing for the front porch, an entire room, a desk), traveling, comedy, community theater. He loved to travel and went to Australia, explored Europe by train and the United State by motorcycle.

He loved to laugh and had such a distinctive, hearty, belly-laugh that comedians and actors on stage loved having him in their audience. He would laugh so hard at Johnny Carson or Hee-Haw that he would rock his body up and down in his recliner, making it open and close in rhythm with his laughter. My dad’s laughter was better than sunshine, better than summer vacation, better than chocolate.

He loved chocolate chip cookies, good donuts, pizza, Paul Harvey on the radio, riding his motorcycle, and Sunday drives in the Cascade mountains.

On my wedding day, he looked so handsome in his rented tuxedo. I sort of insisted that he get a tux–he was just going to wear a brown suit. As he walked me down the aisle–his first child to marry, his oldest daughter–I thought I might burst into tears, so I leaned and said, “Say something funny,” but he couldn’t hear me and by the time I said again, urgently, “Say something funny!” we were half-way down the aisle and gulping back our tears.

My favorite wedding picture of us shows big smiles verging on hysterical laughter. The photographer had said to us, “What’s her nickname?” and my dad paused and I hissed to him, “DON’T YOU DARE!” and he chuckled and I choked back laughter because his nickname for me–one of many–was “Spongy-butt.” (No, Dad, I don’t have any body-image issues. Thanks much.) Boy, we look happy in that picture. We were happy, too.

I moved with my new husband to Connecticut and while we were there, my dad surprised us with an October visit. He and I drove to Vermont, snapping photographs of the changing leaves in the foggy mist. That was his last October.

The next spring, he was diagnosed with metastatic melanoma. He died four months later. I arranged his funeral, hosted the luncheon afterwards, went through his shirts and shoes and drawers full of stuff. I found a stack of letters and cards deep in his closet. Rubberbanded together was every note, card and letter I’d ever sent to him, from the time I was a small child to my days as a new bride working in a law office. This man–the unsentimental, intimidating, multi-faceted man–kept his heart hidden, too. I didn’t know the true depths of his love for me until I unbanded that stack of letters, until he was gone. I was gypped. Three weeks after he turned 47, he died.

A close friend of his told me in the following months, “You were his shining star.” I didn’t know. I didn’t realize he was proud of me, that he missed me, that he adored me. Until afterwards.

He was a remarkable, complicated, wounded man. He was my dad.

Happy Birthday, Dad. I miss you.