A long post of the birth of my first daughter whose birthday is today. I'm saving it for her here so it will never be lost.
It's hard to say it was just a day because it was actually 3 days. I started to feel the pulling on my body 72 hrs before and even though this was my first birth, I knew that you were trying to come home. I was so scared, alone and knew that I would have to drive myself to the hospital so I didn't want to wait too late to leave Chula Vista for the Balboa Naval hospital. I had been to the Dr on that fateful 4th day before and he had "stripped my membranes", a practice they don't do anymore, Thank God, but it was done to me and it started the process of birthing.
It was so painful early on and I was worried so that day around 10AM, I drove myself in and after examining me, they said I was only 1 to 2 CM and they sent me home. They told me to walk a lot and stay busy so I drove back home and walked up and down the lil hill where our trailer was parked. I visited with my elderly next door neighbors and they were very worried that I would wait too long to drive myself in so around 6 PM, I drove myself back to the hospital. I was a full 3 Cm by then and they weren't going to keep me again but I told them I was alone as my husband was deployed so they put me in a room by myself, gave me an enema, and it began.
It was so slow and I started bleeding about 11 PM. I was so embarrassed that I kept wiping myself with the lil kleenex on the side table. I kept getting out of bed to go to the bathroom to wipe and one of the nurses finally figured out what I was doing and said, don't do that anymore. If it gets Blood on the sheet, that's OK. It was so hard for me but I stopped wiping so that they could tell how much blood I was losing.
The baby monitor on my belly was so loud and uncomfortable with those big straps they put across me but I made myself stay put and just listened to your heartbeat. Around midnight or one, I noticed a change in your heartbeat and called the nurse. She said it was alright and to just turn on my side and try to rest, which I did.
But I couldn't just shut off the plopping of your heartbeat. It seemed like hrs later and around 5, a bunch of " wanna be" Drs came into my room with an instructor and they talked about me. Right in front of me. That's when I knew I was a case now. Something was going wrong and they wanted the students to see it. I became furious and yelled at them to get out of my room. They looked at me like I was the one with the problem and they left.
All I could concentrate on was your slowing heartbeat and I was praying for what seemed like hours , for you and I to live. I had become so worried that you were not going to make it. I prayed over and over,
yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for though art with me.
Over and over I whispered it to your heartbeat sound on the monitor, trying to impart some energy to that slow, ploppy heartbeat. I begged the nurses to tell the Dr throughout the morning but they just reassured me that everything was alright, when I knew it wasn't. I was only 8 CM. They kept telling me , it's a first pregnancy and these things take time but I was alone, so scared and listening to what I thought, was my daughter dying.
Your heart beat was only in the 80's now. I watched the monitor like a hawk all the while praying, yea though I walk through the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for though art with me, over and over.
It was probably only an hr but it seemed like forever when the Dr finally came to see me. I used to remember the name of the dr and I'm sure it's written in Wendi's baby book but I can't bring it forward now. I think the last name was Smith.
He looked at the monitor, pulled the sheet up and asked how long has she been bleeding? They said since last night. He listened as I did, to the heartbeat, at which time it sounded like a wet plop into a bucket and only about 58 beats to a minute and said prep her for surgery. They nurses sprang into action. Washed off my stomach, started to shave me for a C-section and then they could see hair from your head. You were trying to be born but You had no strength and I didn't either.
They stopped shaving me and immediately took me down the hall to surgery. I was almost out of my mind with worry so it all seemed a blur of activity. They put me on a gurney type bed, stripped my gown off and put this huge light over my the area. I was so traumatized at this point that I was so exposed, so weak from blood loss and I couldn't heart your heartbeat anymore.
They were moving in lightening speed but it seemed like slow motion to me. They seemed urgent and I didn't know why because they tell you nothing, when something is wrong.
The dr was down there working, they were telling me to push. I didn't know what any of it meant. I hadn't had anyone tell me what to expect, how to breathe, what to do. I was a stranger in a strange land at 21 years of age.
I saw the dr grab a circular shaped tool and felt him insert it into my body. I didn't understand any of it. But what I found out later is that he was trying to help pull you out. They had seen the cord around your neck. So they pulled with the forceps and what seemed like finally, you came out at 7:22 AM.
I saw your lifeless body, all blue, with black stuff all over your face and the first words out of my mouth were, she's dead. They didn't keep you long on that table. They suctioned your nose and mouth of the merconiam and cleaned your face and whisked you away.
They sewed me up, took me to a recovery room where for hours, they massaged my ututerus.
I can't begin to describe to you how much that hurt. If I thought the pain of childbirth was more than I could bear, the massaging felt so painful I cried. I felt so wimpy doing that but I was in an emotional state. The nurses were rough with me.
They said if I didn't massage it, that they would and they were so rough. So I massaged and massaged until they took me to a ward with other mothers. They kept getting me up and I was white as a sheet. I was so pale, from loss of blood.
The last time they got me up, they put me on the toilet and left me alone. I fainted, fell off the toilet to the floor and hit my head. When they came back I was sprawled on the floor and they finally seemed to get it that I was weak.
12 hrs after you were born, I was in the ward. The other mothers had seen and fed their babies but I had not. An officer Dr came to see me when I fainted and he examined me. He took my hand and turned it over where the palm was entirely white. He said, you're not going to get out of bed now without help and you're not going to be alone in the bathroom till you feel better. We need to give you a couple pints of blood but I was so scared of that so I refused.
He said what baby did you have and I told him a lil girl but I didn't know anything about her. He said, what do you mean? I said I haven't seen her. I don't know if she lived or not and I was so sad and crying. I will never forget him patting my hand. Then I saw him walk over to the nurses station where he read them the riot act. He said , this girl doesn't know if her daughter lived or died. God, he was so mad. When he was done, he came to me with a wheelchair, helped me into it and took me down to the Nursery himself.
Once there I saw you for the very first time. 12+ hrs since you were born. You were pink now, with wires all over your little body. You were breathing, sleeping like a lil angel and you had brown hair and oh so pale skin like a China doll.
I was so thankful to this young Dr that i couldn't thank him enough. You were alive and your life gave me a burst of energy. I had someone else to live for now. All my life seemed to suddenly make sense. The abuse, my dads drinking, my mom leaving us, my bad marriage. All of it. I knew that I had to do all that to be here for you. You were my reason and you still are.
They moved me from the smaller recovery ward to a long ward with about 32 rooms, filled with mothers like I was and for the first time that night, I got to hold you and try to feed you. I gave you a name Wendi Gail, the Gail being after my sister Donna. The nurses said Windy gale and I said no. Wendi Gail. They said, oh man. I don't know about that and they did hurricane windy hands and laughed.
I didn't care what anyone thought. You were my Wendi Gail and I loved you with every fiber of my being. They told me you had to eat 2 ounces before I could take you home so I kept trying to achieve that every 2 or 3 hrs when they brought you to me.
You just couldn't eat that much so at the end of the 2nd day, I started feeding the plant in the room what you couldn't eat of the 2 ounces and told the nurses you ate it all.
I had this thought that I needed to get you home by any means so that you would be safe. They kept waking you up to hold you because you were one of the most beautiful babies they had seen so I worried you weren't being allowed to sleep. I knew they were waking you up to hold you because they told me. They didn't know how that worried me.
I kept quiet, kept feeding the plant and on the 3rd day, they said I could go home. I put you in my green pinto wagon and took you home. Car seats weren't required then so I held you while I drive us home. I still can't believe that I did that to this day but I didn't want to just put you on a seat and more yet, I didn't want to be away from you for a minute. We had worked too hard to get you here. I drove the miles from San Diego to Chula Vista and walked inside my home, a 2 bedroom trailer on blocks. I went next door to get my other baby, a 3 year old tan miniature dachshund named Scooby-Doo and got ready to introduce my first baby dog to my first baby child.
The elderly neighbors gushed over you and said what a beautiful baby you were and they brought me things over the next week til my sister Donna came to visit. I was so happy to be home with you and even more happy that you had fought to live like I had fought to live. You were born at 7:22 on June 9th 1974 weighing 6 lbs. 9 ounces and 21 inches long and 21 hours after I entered the hospital.
You were the same poundage as the day you were born. 6-9 and i was in labor with you for 21 hours which was my age. That started the marvelous, adventurous and miraculous life that we have shared. I love you with all my heart. Happy Birthday Wendi. You are my life's breath. Love,Mom
