In the Beginning

My first pregnancy miscarried. It was disappointing and we were supposed to wait three months before trying again to let my body heal. Only two months later I was pregnant with my first son, non-the-less. I realized after a time, that if I hadn’t miscarried, my first child would have been someone completely different.

When the time for delivery was growing near, we prepared by attending Lamaze classes. This was fairly new in the 1970’s. I liked the idea of having a natural birth and nursing the “old fashioned” way. I wanted to do the very best I could for my baby. I also started wishing he could get out as easily as he got in. I had never done this before. I had all the head knowledge and none of the practical.

I was near term when a nurse at the teaching hospital where I had my appointments tried to convince me that I was overdue. My calculations put me right on schedule. But, being young and inexperienced, I let them talk me into having an amniocentesis. The procedure was new and I should have been wary when they had me sign a release. I had already dropped, so the technician had to force the baby’s head back up in order to take the sample of amniotic fluid. Supposedly, they were checking to see how developed my son was at that time. (He was born the day the tests were supposed to be ready.) Later I realized they were practicing on me.  

The time finally came and we went to the hospital. My contractions slowed down, so they gave me shots to speed them up. As soon as I received the injection, I had an immediate contraction. I hyperventilated when I did the breathing patterns. I wasn’t dilating.

Finally, I got into a breathing pattern that worked and stopped needing to breathe into the paper bag. I still wasn’t dilating. They sent me in for an x-ray to see if there was any size issues. Have you ever tried to hold still for an x-ray during a contraction? They had to wait, of course, until I stopped doing Lamaze. I heard one of the technicians say, “Looks like a ten pounder.”

I had barely weighed a hundred pounds pre-pregnancy; this didn’t sound good.

I was wheeled back to my room. The doctor came to check on me. I heard him tell the nurse at the door that, if I wasn’t ready by the time he finished the C-section he was about to do, he’d go ahead and do a C-section on me. By that time, I was ready to throw in the towel. I thought to myself, at least it will be over soon. I relaxed. By the time the doctor came back to check on me I was crowning. We went into the delivery room and everything came out all right. And he was only an average seven pound baby after all.