This ones for my girl

When I was just short of turning 21 my daughter was born. We were talking the other day and I realized that everyone should know about their birth. I always just heard I was born in a blizzard and like all the kids in my family was born at home. And thats about all I know.

I got married at 17 so that I wouldn't have to move clear across the country with my parents. When I was 19 my son was born. When he was just a toddler we decided he was so darn cute we should have another one. When I was about 5 or 6 mo. pregnant we moved out to the east coast to live near my parents and my big brother.

We were able to rent a little one bedroom cottage in a trailer park. I remember getting my first washing machine (ringer type) while there. We had a small dirt yard that was level with the doorway, so with a little guy coming in and out it was hard to keep the dust down. I worked a little as a grocery clerk just up the road for a month or so.

When I started labor we headed to the hospital, think we must have taken the son to my Moms. I remember it was raining. I was to experience a very different delivery than when my son was born in a little county hospital. I was in a very large City hospital. They delivered several babies a day. I remember I was progressing slow so they started a pit drip to make it more painful, (or was it to just make the contractions work better?) Any way back in those days they thought that you had to stay flat on your back or it wasn't effective. Being a labor and delivery nurse many years later myself I learned that was all a bunch of hooey! Anyway they kept coming in and making me turn back. I labored all day and somewhere around 7pm was delivered of a 7 lb 3 0z. baby girl via forceps! Here I am a good size healthy 20 year old and couldn't spit out a little 7 # baby! In hind sight I know know that she was turned face up and that was why I had so much back pain and the need for the forceps.

Back then you had to stay in the hospital for 2 or 3 days at least. I was breast feeding so when they would bring the babies down the hall to give to the Mamas they had a big cart on wheels. No rooming in back then. We have told the story of how the babies were in these little bins on the cart and sadly we teased our daughter that maybe they got babies mixed up. Little did I know that her brother took up on this and she lived in fear that maybe she didn't belong to us! Well they were ID'd with wrist bands and I have no doubt. But they really did look like vegetable carts to me!

So we took her home and big brother got moved out of the baby crib and put into a little cot so the new baby had a bed. Lucky that we were able to move into a large house a few months later. The picture posted here is of my daughter and I way back then, standing in front of that house with our matching dresses that I made.

Thought for the day: You may be only one person in the world, but you may also be the world to one person.