It's a Girl July 1988

I have been looking forward to telling this story. It is one of my favorites and a good one. At least I think so and since I am pretty sure I am the only one reading this blog I can do whatever I want.

I found out I was pregnant with Daughter #2 in November 1987. Actually I didnt even find out I was pregnant. Hubby did because he was stationed at the medical clinic, brought in a urine sample of mine and then found out the results. So he told me. Only in the military. Really!

I was making fried chicken when he told me and it was not cooking right with the chicken pieces bleeding at the bone. It made me so sick I have never made fried chicken on the bone again. In 20 years.

I was so scared that I would throw up again every minute, this time with an 8 month old to care for, in a different state, (we lived in Florida by now) with no family to help. But I didnt. I guess my body just knew it couldnt be done. It took over.

I stopped nursing daughter 1 and waited for the birth of kid 2. Surprisingly I gained another 50 lbs during my pregnancy. She was the only pregnancy I found out what I was having. I just desperately wanted to have a sister for daughter 1.

Daughter 1 and I would walk to the pool everyday. I didnt have a car and hubby was still in the Navy so he was gone during the days and every 5th night. We would swim for hours and then lay on a lounge chair and eat fruit. I never was so tan in my life. You can lay in the sun in Florida from March until September. The nurses even commented when I was giving birth about how tan I was.

I went into labor with daughter 1 two days before my due date so with daughter 2 I expected to go earlier. Wrong. I actually got later with each kid. My mother came down to help because literally we didnt know anyone who could have taken daughter 1 when I went into labor. She came down on June 30th, my due date was July 4th and she wasnt born until July 10th.

On the day of July 9th the baby felt really tight. She seemed to have moved and since I had back labor with daughter 1, I didnt really think anything of it. We had friends over for cake for our friends birthday and so we were up later than usual.

Funny story here, we had the carpets cleaned on July 9th in anticipation of the new baby arriving soon. While we had our friends over for cake, an entire container of iced tea flew out of the refrigerator and spilled so far into the kitchen, it actually seeped into the living room. I guess it was kinda funny, I dont remember thinking that at the time.

They leave around 1130pm and I think I am in labor, not sure again because I had only back pain the first time.

I decide to take a shower, just in case. We live 45 minutes from the hospital. Around 2am we decide it is really time to go. We leave with the idea that I am having the baby.

They send me home. But not before giving me Demerol. This WAS Jacksonville Florida, hillybilly world I must say.

Now I am traveling back to my apartment 45 minutes away drugged out of my mind. I am half passed out, half still awake experiencing the contractions. Demerol has to be the worst drug ever. It doesnt take the pain away just makes you incoherent.

I get home and am sitting on the couch with my mother and hubby, its around 530am. I am falling in and out of consciousness and seriously hubby and my mother still make fun of it to this day. I go between being completely out of it, to screaming in pain. It goes on for an hour and a half. At some point I feel this incredible pressure and I think Wow I should just push this baby out.

It takes me a little while to realize that I am 45 miles from the hospital and this is probably not good.

I tell hubby and mother who laugh and say yeah sure haha ok lets get back to the hospital. I am seriously considering not going anywhere so hubby pulls the car onto the apartment lawn in front of our door and half carries me out.

We begin the long trip back to the hospital. Thank God its a Sunday or we would have never made it. The traffic there would have been terrible on a weekday at 7am and she would have been born on the Florida Interstate.

We arrive at the hospital at 8:01am. Literally that is what time I check in downstairs. I have secretly been pushing in the car the whole time so I know she is minutes away from being born. The staff does not know and they arent listening to me.

They are telling me to fill out this form, sign here, do this, do that, I have my head down on the counter pushing because it feels better that way.

They put me in a wheel chair and take me in the elevator up to the fourth floor. They put me in a room and say change into this gown. I say I cant. They say you have to. I stand up in the room and start taking off my clothes. The nurses say we need a urine sample, I say no I cannot walk the 8 steps to the bathroom. They say you have to. I walk into the bathroom and my water breaks. Um my water just broke and the baby is coming out. Yeah whatever come out of the bathroom.

Now I dont know if the nurse saw my face or what freaked her out but she was like Oh My God get a gurney she is having the baby now. So they throw me on a gurney, wearing the gown and my shoes and start to take me into the delivery room.

Daughter 2's head comes out in the hall. AAAHHH they scream get a doctor. They bring me in the delivery room, no one there but a nurse and they transfer me onto a delivery table with nothing on it. just plain metal.

Dont push, dont push they scream. Yeah right...I think. The cord is wrapped around her neck, DO NOT PUSH.

Ok ok ok, I am trying.

Now push.

Its a Girl. Yeah we knew but it was still just as exciting.

It was 8:07am. Just 6 minutes after arriving at the hospital.

There was no doctor there. Just the on call nurse from the floor. And she did an amazing job saving daughter 2. She was blue when she was born and she uses that as an excuse for her speech impetement. She tells the funniest story about being "born blue".

It was scary but she has the best belly button by far. Go nurses.

The funniest part was that the people in the waiting room saw us walk in and then saw hubby walk out less than 10 minutes later. How is it going they ask?
Mostly because people in the south cant mind their own business.

Its a girl hubby says.
What??? You just walked in.
Yeah that is how we do things in New York. Quick and smart, not slow and stupid like you.

He didnt really say that but we thought it.

That hospital was amazing in some ways and so destructive in others. In Stony Brook where daughter 1 was born they let me breast feed her on demand. In St. Vincents Medical Center, yes there was a giant cross hanging on the wall in every room, they only brought her in every 4 hours and fed her formula the rest of the time. It was so destructive she was the only one of my kids that quit nursing before I was ready at 4 months old.

On the night before I left they took her from my room and brought in a candle light dinner with fried shrimp and steak. Oh and cheesecake too.

Yes I am easily swayed with food. I left there thinking this was the best place I had ever been.

It was only 6 minutes from the time we walked into that hospital until daughter 2 was born. I kid around with her now and tell her that was the last fast thing she ever did in her life. She reluctantly agrees.