Jul. 31, 2008
The Last First Day!
Recently my 16 year old daughter, Carolyn, came to me and said "Mom, I'm going to have my last first day of high school soon." Where have the years gone? December 1990, Carolyn was conceived in Sydney, Montana. We joke about the tumble I took down the stairs in our rented house as I was trying to get my 4 year old son Daniel to the bathroom (so sound asleep that it didn't even register that he had already had an accident). As we never used birth control, we laughed about the tumble bouncing things around so that we could conceive again.We headed back to the farm in Minnesota so that we could be close to family. Just as I had been with Daniel, I was desperately sick with this pregnancy. The local hospital staff and I were on a first name basis. I rolled a car on Father's Day and had an ultrasound to check the baby. The ultrasound showed nothing wrong with the baby, but alerted us to the fact that I was also the proud parent of numerous gall stones. Now we had to contend with the 24 hour morning sickness as well as the gall stones that would soon start to act up, I believe, because of the accident. July came along and after being in the hospital for several days on constant pain medication, the decision was made to remove the gall bladder. I, naively, thought that they would also do a c-section to take the baby as well. I knew that it was early (8 weeks), but I honestly did not think they could do the surgery without the c-section. Not only did they not take her, but did a tubal ligation when they removed my gall bladder. We had previously decided on the tubal ligation because of my severe morning sickness when pregnant resulting in my mother-in-law having almost complete care of our son. After surgery, I was on meds to suppress contractions. Labor day 1991, I was once again so sick that my mother-in-law took me to the hospital late that afternoon. They admitted me once again and after being hooked up to my IV and put into my room, my mother-in-law left for home via my sister-in-law's house. Ten minutes after she left between 5 and 6 o'clock, while laying in bed, I felt this flooding sensation.  I had not felt that in my first pregnancy because I was in hard labor and zoned out when my water broke. But that is another story. I called the nurse to let them know and, after what seemed an eternity and several calls to the nurse's station, they came and determined that I was indeed in labor on Labor Day!I frantically started calling home to get David to come. No answer at home, no answer at his sister's house!  I finally called our pastor's house and told our pastor's wife, Kathy. She rushed out to the farm, told David and, from what I hear, would have jumped in the shower with him as he cleaned up from the pig pen if he hadn't hurried. David thought that because it had been twelve hours of labor with our son it would be that long with this one. Was he wrong! He and Mom got to the hospital and came to the birthing room. Things progressed very quickly. I started to feel the urge to push and called the nurse. She was sure that I wasn't dialated enough, but checked anyway. She then started coaching me in breathing through contractions as she informed me that Dr. Yelle was not in the building. Panic set in, but Dr. Yelle arrived and at 9:42pm we delivered this beautiful, 6lb 12oz girl. The first and only granddaughter for David's parents.  September 2, 1991 was the first last day that I would have with Carolyn. So many first last days would follow. As I type today, I am determined that this last year with the daughter who holds my heart will be a good year full of many shared experiences and much love and laughter. I want to chronicle Carolyn's life this year as I think back on those first last days. I only wish that, like DandelionSeeds, I had realized the importance of those first last days and events in both of my children's lives while they were still young. |
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