Flashback Friday

Note: The funniest thing happened on the way to my blog… I discovered a post that I started nearly two years ago (yes, you read that correctly – years!). I don’t know why I started and then didn’t finish the post. Lord knows, I never (ahem) start something and then not finish it. Since today is the 31st birthday of the subject of this flashback, I thought it totally appropriate to finish this post and get it out there. I do think I’ll switch it up a bit though.

I originally started this flashback to talk about my Tiger Cruise with Amy when she was on the USS Boxer. I think that I will change this up and flash back through the last 31 years to her delivery. There are lots of pictures of her through the years, but she actually has most of them and I can’t very well take her scrapbooks apart to get those pictures. So, we’ll just have to go with what I’ve got.

I was nearly two weeks overdue with Amy when I finally went into labor. Unfortunately, my personal physician was not on call when I did go into labor. He had me scheduled for an induction at 7:00 AM on Monday, April 27, 1981, but I went into labor Friday night – April 24, 1981. I didn’t make my first trip to the hospital until Saturday afternoon. I figured I’d been in active labor long enough that they’d keep me, especially since I was scheduled for induction Monday morning. Wrong… They kept me in observation for four hours and then sent me home. That was the normal procedure at this hospital and it didn’t matter that my doctor had scheduled me for Monday morning, that I was nearly two weeks overdue, or that I was in active labor with contractions every three minutes. So, home I go.

I did everything I could think of to speed up this process. I walked. And walked. And walked some more. I went back to the hospital Sunday morning. They didn’t care that I was miserable and hadn’t slept or that contractions were now two minutes apart. Standard practice was to be observed for four hours and if not enough change, discharged. Seriously? I was 4 cm and they sent me home. I was ticked. The doctor-on-call said if I hadn’t had the baby by Monday morning then my doctor could speed things along, but since I wasn’t his patient he wasn’t going to do anything – not even contact my doctor.

I came home and tried to get some rest. My mom was watching Shaun for me so I could. She could tell I was doing the same thing she did (but she did it seven times!) and knew that once things started moving, they’d move quickly. I called the doctor’s office again at 8:00 PM Sunday night. I told them I wasn’t coming back unless they said they would keep me. They couldn’t promise that but said it would be best if I came back. The admissions personnel were quite rude and made a couple of snide comments about this not being my first trip down there that weekend.

Once again, I was placed in the observation room and not admitted. They didn’t even take any information from me. At one point (about 10:30 or so), I said I had to go to the bathroom (push). The nurse told me I couldn’t push – that it was too soon for that since I’d just been checked 30 minutes earlier and there hadn’t been any change (in fact, they were thinking about just sending me home again). So, I said to her, “OK, then I have your permission to go to the bathroom?” She was extremely ticked and told me that she’d have to check me one more time to verify and then I could go to the bathroom.

I thought the woman was going to have heart failure. I was 10 cm and ready to start pushing. They sent my (then) husband down to admissions to do the paperwork and to get ready to go into the delivery room. They hadn’t even started an IV yet so I had nurses on both sides of me trying to get everything taken care of before I had the baby right then and there. Amy made her appearance at 12:42 AM on April 27, 1981. The little brat… she was exactly two weeks overdue and delivered on the day the doctor scheduled it - just a few hours earlier than scheduled.

So, happy birthday to my (baby) girl! This post is scheduled to arrive exactly 31 years after her arrival. She has grown into a wonderful woman, a daughter anyone would be proud of, and a great mother and wife. I am so very proud of her and all that she has accomplished!