Wow. Who would ever have considered I'd be sitting here 60 years later talking about my son Marty! I seem to have a post for his birthday most years.
But I like seeing these old photos from this post Younger than me Lovers...
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And here's the story of his birth from my perspective, as I wrote it when he turned 50.
Fifty years ago today I gave birth to my first son.
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| Barbara expecting, near upstairs apartment in background in Corpus Christi, Texas |
It was horrible...though I'd definitely been looking forward to the experience. Horror was being in a Naval Air Station hospital, without anyone near me who I knew. It included being among a huge number of women also in labor, such that I was on a gurney in a dark hallway alone much of the time. I had my first ever enema experience, and didn't know that I should have waited in the bathroom longer, so ended up wallowing out of the gurney with sides raised and not getting back to the toilet in time. Major apologies to the young male aide who mopped for me. Remember NAS meant everyone around me was in the Navy.
Then I was given drugs. I had never had any drugs, even aspirin, in my whole life. Well, maybe in my year since leaving home, I'd tried aspirin at least. But I didn't have any idea what was happening. At some point I was shaved down there. My young Coast Guard husband was somewhere else, and I had relied upon him since we married, almost entirely.
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| Doug, Corpus Christi, Texas |
Labor was intense enough that I was in that hallway around 4 pm. I honestly didn't see or hear anything until being asked to move to the delivery table a bit past midnight. I saw the clock on the wall. That was what their drugs did to me. Maybe I endured a lot of pain, or maybe I was the one shouting as I didn't endure labor. I knew the next day I was hoarse, and people around me said I was the one screaming. I do remember complaining to the doctors asking me to get on the delivery table "but you're making me sit on my baby's head."
I lay back, raised my feet as commanded into the stirrups, and looked for a mirroring surface so I might see the baby emerge. Good thing I couldn't find one, because they had to use forceps. This left a little bump on the side of my precious little one's head for the first week of his life. They did tell me it would go away. And it did.
I also remember I had what was called a saddle block. (Boy the horsemen sure were with me that night, stirrups, saddle block!) So when the doctor said now is time to push, I laughed and asked how...I could no longer feel a thing. If I wasn't giddy with the drugs I'm sure I could have figured it out.
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| Little Marty |
I remember having my pre-natal checkups in the same hospital. We pregnant women would all line up and receive our little cups for urine samples, which we took turns depositing in the one bathroom. I now wonder exactly what they were looking for in our pee. I guess something might have been evident if it was wrong. Then we'd undress and be draped, on a table with only curtains separating us from the next woman. We'd be probed, measured, and baby's heart listened to. And that was it, for months on end, then every week.
I attended the New Baby wellness class that was a few sessions showing photos and telling the stages of birth. None of that made a bit of sense when I was experiencing birth though.
So fifty years ago, I finally had my baby. A few days in the hospital, and my parents and sister visited when we went home...they lived half a continent away. Other cousins and Great Aunts came also to visit. I felt like such a queen, having given birth and having a healthy child. My dear husband was on leave for a few days, then went back on his cutter.
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| Grandmother giving Marty soothing lullaby |
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| First grandchild for both sides of the families |
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| Sure it took 2 or more adults to give that little squirming guy a bath! |
And into the bliss of first time young motherhood came the disaster.
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I can't find any old posting about the surgery my 4 week old son had to have. Pyloric stenosis was the diagnosis. At the time he became severely ill, unable to keep any milk down, my husband was away doing his Coast Guard work at sea.
So I went first to the NAS hospital, where the doctor said throwing up some milk was normal.
But within days he was projectile vomiting all his feeding, and then of course crying from hunger again. I nursed him all the time, then went to the yellow pages to see a pediatrician off base. She lovingly told me about his little valve having closed from his stomach, so his feeding never went down to his gut. She said I needed him to have surgery, which would be costly unless I went through NAS.
So I did. And I believe my mother was still there, and maybe my husband returned about the time Marty was checked in for the surgery. My Christian Science mother was not advising us at all, being against medical treatment. I'm glad she was praying, but she was not a warm and supportive person.
And part of this experience is fogged in my memory by 1) having breast infections from having been feeding him over and over thus producing a large amount of milk which I didn't know to expel any other way since no one seemed to bother about a mother and 2) missing this little one who, when I visited him in the hospital following surgery, was weighted down by restraining blocks to keep him from touching his scar, and he had various i.v. lines into his ankles. It was an alien sight to behold, and very upsetting.
My husband never said how he felt, but I relied upon him for my support. I ended up in (public not NAS) ER due to my breast infections. A male doctor gave me instructions to put ice on my poor sore breasts. They didn't mention putting ice in towels, but said to use a water-bottle type thing, which we purchased. I didn't try that for long, however. They never said to use a breast pump. It was like dealing with people who I later realized were completely uneducated to my needs.
I was definitely feverish, and when my son was released from the hospital, I had to give him bottles, since that's how he'd been fed for 4 days. So I learned that whole process.
Our little family left Corpus Christi TX after my husband was finished with his Coast Guard duty, and we moved to Connecticut, where his parents lived. They doted upon little Marty! It was another experience to get to know in-laws, but that's not Marty's story, but my own.
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For today, I'm proud of his growth, his love in his family, his sense of humor, his sense of responsibility, and his incredible intelligence. Happiest of birth anniversaries, Marty!
