Saturday morning, April 14, 1990, the day before Easter and one week before my due date, I called my mom around ten to check in. My husband and I were talking about doing some shopping and wondered if Mom wanted to watch Nick.
She agreed and said we could drop him off at my aunt’s, who lived next door to
us, and that she would pick him up in a little while. We were still on the
phone, saying our good-byes, when I got up from the kitchen chair where I had
been sitting to put the phone receiver back on its hook.
There was a gush, and within seconds I was standing in a puddle of water.
“Um, Mom, you still there?”
“Yes. Is something wrong?”
“No, not really. But I don’t think we’re going shopping, I think we’re going to
the hospital instead. My water just broke.”
“Well, take Nick to Helen’s house, and I’ll be there to get him as soon as I
can. Get going.”
I called the hospital and told them I was on my way. When we got there 45
minutes later, they tucked me into bed and hooked me up to the monitors. A
nurse reached under the blankets to check me.
“You’re only dilated to three, so settle in. This could take a while.”
Once again, I thought to myself, “There ain’t no stinkin’ way. They won’t let
me eat until this baby is out, and I’m hungry already.”
Dr. Skye came along a half hour or so
later and told me the same thing that the nurse had, adding, “If you haven’t
had this baby by tomorrow morning, we’ll start you on Pitocin.”
An even more emphatic “no stinkin’
way” rang through my head.
My husband had been sitting in the
chair next to my bed, totally unconcerned, watching MTV. When he heard it was
going to be a while, he finally perked up. “Then I’m going to run to Burger
King for something to eat.”
“Sure, go ahead,” I told him. Someone
might as well eat!
Shortly after he left, the music video
for “Let It Rain Down” by Phil Collins came on the TV hanging from the wall. Of
all the videos that were on that morning, I don’t know why I remembered that
one. But just like married couples have a song, this would forever be the song
for my baby and me.
Two hours later, my husband had
returned and was finishing his Whopper, when I had the urge to push. I rang for
the nurse, who arrived within a few minutes.
She looked very skeptical when I told
her I thought it was time, but she checked me and confirmed my story. “I’ll
page Dr. Skye,” she said, hurrying from the room.
I don’t know why I remember so many
details of this birth. Can other mothers recall everything?
When I was in labor with Nick, all I
remember is that we had lasagna for supper the night before and that I pooped
all over the doctor when I was pushing (that is very common, and the doctor and
nurses are used to it, in case any young women read this and freak out). I also
remember driving to the hospital in the middle of the night. We were living in
Colorado at the time, and there was one point on I-25 heading into Denver,
where it is so dark along the highway, and then you turn a wide curve, and all the
lights of the city are suddenly there.
Now, though, as I lay in that bed with music videos staring at me, Dr. Skye
walked in the room and announced, “I was at the store reaching into the cooler
for a gallon of milk when my pager went off.”
Why? Why did she tell me that? And why can I still hear her words in my head to
this day?
Anyway, it was less than an hour later that she was cradling that pink, wrinkly
eight-pound, five-ounce baby girl in her arms. She brought the bundle to my
side and lay her in my arms.
She said to my daughter, “You have parents who love you so much.”
At the time, I didn’t think of her father; I only thought, “Yes, I will love
you with all my heart. Forever.”
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