Warning LONG.. Happy Birthday darlin on the 9th of June..
My oldest daughter almost did not make it into this world. It was a rough beginning for both of us, especially as she was my first child.
I was alone in a new city and afraid but my strength came from her need for me and I met it as best I could. I drove myself to the hospital and I drove my baby and myself back home on the 4th day. My husband was on a 6 month deployment and I was but one of many, that were having our babies alone. For many of us, it was a first baby and our first experience in a hospital.
I remember repeating. "Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for thou art with me. Thy rod and thy staff comfort me, Over and over as the life slipped away from my daughter. Her heart sounded like a plop in a bucket as I begged them to take her. They came into prep me for a C-Section and she crowned so they rushed me to delivery.
She was born with the cord wrapped around her neck after 21 hours of labor. She was lifeless and did not cry and I said outloud, she is dead.. I was in shock after blood loss and the labor and of going through all of this alone.
I was on a Ward at the Balboa Naval Hospital in San Diego with 30 others mothers, 15 of us on each side. She and I survived the delivery, but I did not know this until 12 hours later when a Captain came into the hospital and was told that I fainted anytime they tried to get me out of bed. The last time I had fallen in the bathroom when I was left alone on the toilet and I Hit my head on the way down. He looked at the white palms of my hands and said this girl needs to have help when she is up. He asked me what I had delivered and I said, a girl but I don't know if she made it or not.
The look he gave the staff would have cut them to the quick if it had been a knife. He said where is her daughter? They said in the Nicu.. He made them put me in a wheelchair and take me to the nursery where I saw my daughter for the first time without merconium in her mouth and face. She weighed 6 pounds and 9 oz but she looked so tiny with all those monitor lines on her tummy and foot. She was not moving much but she was breathing well and I thought for the first time, she is going to make it and I was so thankful.
I knew that if I can only get her home, she will be fine. I tried to get her to eat and the babies had to eat two ounces before they would let you bring them home. Three days later she was only eating an ounce at each feeding so I squeezed the extra formula into the plant in my room and took her home.
She was everything to me. Any sacrifice, any aloneness that I had ever felt left me when I had Wendi. She was the love of my life and I would do anything to make sure she had what she needed.
I divorced her father for infidelity and later remarried to a man that loved to travel and surprise us on a weekly basis. He was the best of my husbands and Mary's Dad. He, Wendi and I went on so many adventures in the 8 years we were together in the years before Mary was born. Jaunts down to Monterey or up to San Francisco and many trips with the lady I call Mom, Norma Dibbell. She died this year in Jan and I still well up when i think of it. She was Wendi's Grandma in every sense of the word and I am so thankful that we had her all those years.
We would go on the diving bell and eat homemade Clam Chowder, eat Calamari, tentacles and all and spend nights sleeping on the beach at Point Reyes after a long day of walking and exploring. We would always stop at the Cheese factory and buy cheese or just tour the facility and we always left with some Brie, Wendi's favorite. The we would stop in Inverness where the town was full of artists and old hippies and that was just so much fun. They had the best coconut macaroons I have ever tasted and I wish so much that I remembered the name of the company that made them. Something about Macaroons and artwork that you never forget. lol
The Climb down to the lighthouse there would put hair on your chest with its difficulty, but we did it almost every time we went to Point Reyes. There were trips to Big sur and the Redwoods where the trees are so huge that a car can drive right through any opening in them.
Yosemite called our name many times . Sometimes we rented a loft cabin and other times we would stay in our custom Van, but every time was exciting and fun. One day we came at the right time to see the rock climbers and I remember being so afraid because they were going right up the sheer cliff without ropes. Just climbing like we walk.
The weekends in San Francisco were among my treasured memories of being with Wendi. She adored Fisherman's Wharf with the Sourdough Bread Company, the tubs of old style favorites in the candy store and the Ripley's Museum. One of her favorites was the Exploratorium Children's Science Museum. It is a building full of all kinds of Science experiments that are completely safe for your children to roam and play with. I still marvel that children could just walk around in the building and touch anything they wanted too. All of those strange combinations fascinated her quick mind and she wanted to see and know every thing.
Wendi was my first experience in childhood and we had 11 years to grow up together before I had Mary.She grew and I grew and we were so close.
My Nephew Lil Clif came to stay with us for 6 weeks when he was 10 and Wendi was a yr or two younger. He was like her older brother and my son, rather than a nephew during that time and I loved him up as much as I could during that six weeks. We took a trip down the coast to San Diego and stopped off in Solvang, Hollywood where I put my hands in Liberace's and where Phyllis Diller was actually in the wax Museum when we visited.
We kept on going to San Diego and was visiting the Natural History Museum in Balboa park when our Van was broken into. The thieves took my husbands camera and all our rolls of film of our trip so all of that week was lost, except in our memories. There are a couple of Polaroids that others took but nothing else and they re-locked our Van when they were done with their thieving.
San Diego Zoo, the Wild Animal Park and Sea World made memories for Lil Clif and for Wendi. It was just the best 6 weeks of fun and adventure. I think we went to Disneyland too, but my memory is not bringing that forward this morning.
It is hard to write about my daughter without writing a book. She is my hero. She had a rough beginning and she has overcome so much to find happiness, a home and family and to be all that she has inside that brilliant mind of hers.
She's an Artist, a Writer, a Photographer, a Nurse, A Mother, a Lover of all animals, and she is my daughter. Nothing in the world can equal what she has brought into my life and continues to give to me every day. She is my sweet Golden child and I wish you the happiest of Birthdays.. Love you always, Mom...
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