I was tempted to call these the Vagina Monologues - but thought better of it. But I know that I can't compete with Witzl in the awfulness category for having babies - but each of my children's births had some interesting (to me anyway) and different aspects.

Baby 1 - Stephanie, born June 13, 1968

When Philip and I got married, I wanted to have a baby as soon as possible. (He wasn't all that keen on the idea but gave in eventually.)  There were several reasons for this.

For one thing, I really wanted to be a mother, and have a baby to care for; secondly, I knew my parents would enjoy have a grandchild, and as I also knew that Philip and I were due to live in England after a year's marriage, it would have to be fairly quickly that I produced a baby, or they would miss seeing it. Thirdly, I knew that living in England would be different, and I was somewhat apprehensive about it. I thought I would  prefer to have my first baby in a hospital I knew, in a country that I was familiar with the practices in.

So from the first, we tried to have a baby. At first when I found out I hadn't got pregnant on the honeymoon, I was very disappointed and even wondered if there was something wrong with me. When October came and I still didn't seem to be pregnant, we thought maybe we should think again about it, because we didn't want me to be in the middle of the birth just when we were leaving the country. But by November we realized that I was pregnant, and we were very pleased.

As soon as I suspected I was pregnant, I went to see the same obstetritian that I'd seen before we got married. He had an office in a building just across the street from the hospital. He seemed to think there would be no problems. When one thought that one was about two months’ pregnant, you took a urine sample to the office, asked for it to be tested, and if the result was positive, you'd come back for an appointment. I was then seen monthly. The obstretric service was a package deal. You got all your prenatal, antenatal and delivery for one price, no matter how much or how little attention you needed.

Since we knew I was hoping to get pregnant straight away,  we prudently increased our medical insurance to a policy that recognized pregancy as an expense that they would cover. The premium was quite high, but in fact, we had very little to pay in medical bills apart from the insurance. (The bill in the end was $800, and our insurance paid for half of that. But you probably would have to multiply that by at least ten for today's costs. )


My doctor said I was very healthy, apart from morning sickness for the first few months, and apart from reminding me not to gain too much weight, there was very little that I had to do that was different from normal. I soon put on weight and looked pregnant. But I was careful to keep the. weight gain to that which was allowed - 18 pounds for the whole 9 months. 

We went to childbirth classes, and I decided to have a natural childbirth - and we practiced the breathing exercises.

When I saw the doctor in early June (I was due on the 23rd) he told me that I was starting to dilate. This meant that the baby might be born earlier than anticipated. The baby was very active, and kicked a lot. My blood pressure and weight were fine and all was progressing normally. At that stage, I was going in to see the doctor every two weeks, and for the last month, went every week. Each time I went he mentioned that the birth could be any day.

I had a lot of what are called Braxton Hicks contractions. The abdomen tenses and then relaxes, just like a birth-producing contraction but there is no pain, just a feeling of tightness. Each time I had these, I thought it might be the real thing, and carefully timed it. Then on the 12th of June, I'd had more of these pretend contractions than usual and they seemed more regular so I thought that real labor was probably imminent.

Phil decided we should go for a walk, as walking usually stopped false labor, but didn't affect real labor pains. We walked through the park by the river near us, and the pains continued, although they weren't pains as such, just contractions. When we walked near Prof Basolo's house, he just happened to be in the yard, watering. He said, "COme on in for a cup of coffe." It was the last thing I wanted to do, but Phil said yes so I meekly followed, feeling sure that I'd burst my bag of water all over their carpet.

But due to the change of environment and nervous tension, the contractions then stopped. I survived the coffee evening, and when we went home, I went peacefully to sleep. In the middle of the night, I suddenly felt a strong contraction, and then a dripping of liquid. It wasn't a gush of water, as I'd expected, but the drip continued.

The next day, I was uncertain a bout what to do. Phil went into work as usual. I had my bag packed. I eventually called the doctor and when he returned my call in midafternoon and I explained that I'd had this continual water drip, he told me to come into the hospital immediately and he'd call them to tell them to check to see if it was amniotic fluid that was coming out. If it was, he'd induce labor.

So I called Phil to explain to him what had happened, and my voice shook so much, I could hardly speak. My legs shook so much I could hardly stand. He came straight home and then drove me into the hospital with my little overnight bag. The resident doctor had me examined and tested the fluid leak, and decided it was in fact that my bag of waters had sprung a leak. He helped the process along, with his surgical instruments and a sudden gush of warm water completely soaked me. I was then washed and had a clean gown put on and put into a bed in the labor ward. It was about 6 0' clock by this time, and I'd had no real labor at all yet.

Then about  6.30  the contractions started and they were a very different kettle of fish from the play ones I'd had previously. They were at about 3 minute intervals and lasted about a minute. But using the relaxation and breathing techniques, I felt like I could cope.

Phil was allowed in the labor room with me except when I was being examined by the doctor. Then he was asked to sit out in the father's lounge.

The Intern, who was a bit of a ladies-man aut not a very reassuring doctor, came in from time to time and offered me an injection to take the edge off things. I assured him, " I don't want or need anything. I can cope quite well and don't want any drugs."
 
He got annoyed and said "You'll  be changing your tune before long." He very much disliked the idea that I thought I could cope on my own.

About 8:30 the contractions suddenly became much longer, closer together and much more painful. I really had trouble coping with them. I found that the gap between wasn't sufficient for me to get over one before the next was on top of me. I suddenly lost all my reassurance and wanted to have an injection to help. I called the doctor in but he very nastily said, “No. Hard luck. You could have had one before, but you can’t have one now. It would just stop the labor and that wouldn't be desirable at this stage.”

I was so mad. I really didn't think I'd be able to cope with much more. Suddenly my obstetritian arrived on the scene, and I was so pleased to se e his familiar friendly face. I explained to him that I couldn't cope and wouldn't he please give me something. He considered for a minute, and then he decided he would do two things, he'd give me a tablet inside my mouth, to hold between my lip and teeth. This meant very fast absorption of the chemical. That drug was to help increase the contractions. He. then also gave me the injection to kill the pain somewhat. It did help, although the process wasn't by any means painless. But the labor suddenly seemed to go into yet another phase, and Phil was asked to sit in the father's lounge, and I was wheeled into the delivery room. I remember feeling very light headed - as if I were drunk as they wheeled me in.

There were three nurses in the delivery room, the resident, the intern and my consultant.

They strapped me onto the delivery table and there was a mirror located so that the mother could watch the birth process (I couldn’t as I wasn’t wearing my glasses.)  I felt like pushing, but was told not to, so panted for the duration of that contraction. I felt very high - like I'd been out drinking and very cheerful. After a few of these panting contractions which seemed much more widely spaced than the ones I’d the previous had I was told to push with the contractions from them on. I think it was at this stage that they gave me an episiotomy (cut the vaginal wall) which isn’t a standard procedure in England.

It was easy to do and I could feel the baby getting nearer and nearer to the outside. With each contraction the doctor would say, "There's the head, can you see it? "

But I didn’t have my glasses on, and the mirror didn't really help me much. But I was pleased that things had progressed to that extent. Suddenly after a big push, the head was out, and it seemed such a big thing. The next contraction brought out the shoulders which seemed nearly as big, and then the rest of the baby, just slipped out. The doctors told me I had a little girl, and quickly cut the cord, aspirated her mouth, and she gave a fairly strong cry.

It was exactly 9 p.m. when Stephanie was born. They wrapped her in a blanket and put her in an incubator not far from where I was laying where she continued to give what I thought were rather weak feeble cries. I was worried about how she looked. She seemed kind of blue and blotchy and I mentioned this to the doctor, but he said "She's fine. That was how newly born babies are supposed to look."

They then concentrated on delivering the placenta. That wasn't at all painful and while the effect of the pain killer was still working, they stitched up my episiotomy.

But that wasn’t the end of the drama. Because of the lateness of the pain killer that I was given, my uterus wouldn’t contract, and I was bleeding copiously. My blood pressure went down to 80/40, and they were seriously worried about it, and fixed up a serum IV. The intern who had been so annoyed with me before was given the job of massaging the “fundus” I think they called it - in order to try to get it to contract enough to stop the blood flow. His strong hand ground round and round in my abdomen and was more painful than any of the birth process had been - and boy, was he enjoying my pain. After a few hours, everything settled down again and Philip was allowed to come and see me.

We got to hold Stephanie for a few minutes, and then she was  taken to the newborn nursery until the next day. After that, she shared a single room with me, although her baby bed was in a separate closed off space quite a distance from me, and if she cried in the night when I was sleeping, the nurses would feed her sterile sugar water.

When Phil came to visit us, and he was the only visitor we were allowed, he had to wear a sterile gown and mask whenever he was near Stephanie. We stayed 3 ½ days.

The day after we arrived home, Judy, who was expecting her baby in October, came to stay for a week. . She’d had virtually no experience with tiny babies and was rather uncertain regarding holding and changing Stephanie but she did it occasionally to get some practice in for her own use in months to come.

One rather frightening thing happened that week. Judy was baking something and
had put the oven on to light, but hadn't realized that it needed a match. Meanwhile
when it became evident that the gas was escaping and the oven hadn't lit, she lit a match to get it going, but because of the accumulation of gas in the oven, it exploded.

I was having a rest at the time, and heard a big bang, which sounded rather like a gunshot. I took awhile to go to check on it, but when I did, I found Judy very badly shaken. She'd burned off her eyebrows and the front bit of her fringe and her face was very red. We had a beer and tried to calm down a bit. She wasn't terribly badly hurt, but we both were very shook up thinking what might have happened.

Our daily routine in those days was quite straightforward. Stephanie was fed on demand, but because I w as getting very tired, we decided that Phil would give her a bottle feed the last thing at night. She didn't ask for milk more frequently than every 3-4 hours and we borrowed some scales from Phil's work and carefully weighed her after each feed and found that she seemed to be getting an adequate supply of milk from me. One thing had caused us quite a lot of worry. Her bowel movements were very watery - and sort of mucousy looking.

Phil said that I must ring the doctor we'd asked to be our pediatritian. I didn't want to call him and put it off and put if off, but finally got up my courage and called. He was busy at the time so the nurse said she'd have him call us back. So all day long each time the phone rang, I'd be scared it was him and I'd have to talk to him.

About eight that evening the phone rang, and when I answered it and he said who he was, I said, "Hello baby, my doctor has got watery stools". Then of course when I realized what I said I was terribly embarrassed and stumbled over each word. The doctor said there was nothing to worry about and that we should just bring Stephanie in for a check up when she was a month old. It seemed so little for him to say considering the mental torture it had caused me. As it turned out he was quite right, there wasn't anything the matter with her.

In July, Stephanie was baptised. We shared the ceremony with 3 other babies, and for some reason the priest got her names mixed up and called her Elizabeth - but on the actual certificate it was correct. That was the first night she slept through without crying - only six weeks old, so we felt that the Holy Spirit was a good thing to have. She was actually a very good baby.

In August, we had to go into Chicago centre with our tiny baby for her to get her own passport which required her birth certificate. We also wanted to get an English Council version of the birth certificate because she was British, due to her father.  But we had a problem. Because we had been married in a Catholic church, without a civil form signing ceremony, the English Consulate was unprepared to accept our marriage as being valid - so they said she would have to have my maiden name on it. This obviously was not acceptable, so we asked my dad to get a copy of our marriage certificate from church, took it to an official office to have it notarised, and sent a copy. Then we could have it all done officially and Stephanie could become a Day in the eyes of the English law.

Our plan was to fly to England in mid September, but I wanted a long visit with my parents before we left. So Philip bought me a first class ticket to Bismarck, and he himself arranged for selling what little furniture we had and packing up and shipping our seven trunks, and then at the end of the month he drove our red Buick Skylark convertible to Bismarck, and sold it for peanuts.

But Philip misjudged my maternal instinct as versus my getting something for free instinct. I had at least three gin and tonics on that flight (2 hours to Minneapolis, half hour wait and then another 2 hours to Bismarck). When it came time to deplane in Bismarck, I couldn’t walk properly. I had to ask the stewardess to carry Stephanie off the plane for me. Not only that, but I hadn’t realised that due to the air conditioning on the plane, she might get chilled in her tiny cute turquoise sunsuit, and she caught a bad cold.

The arrangement for sleeping in Bismarck was that Stephanie was in my old room with me, in a baby bed that mom and dad had borrowed from cousin Marilyn.  Stephanie used to wake about 6 or 7 in the morning for her first feed. I'd get up and feed her, and then Mom got up too, and when she was fed, I'd go back to bed for another hour or so of sleep, and Mom would watch her and play with her while she was in the empty bath with a cushion under her.  Mom couldn't pick her up because she couldn't depend on her left side for support at all, but if she
was sitting comfortably in her favorite pink rocking chair, I could put Stephanie into her arms in such a way, that she could rock her and Stephanie would be safe. She loved having those little cuddles with her new grandchild. She hadn't had any of Kathleen’s kids to cuddle when they were quite so tiny, or for any length of time.

Later we were so glad that we had had that month with her, as she was dead by mid November.