July 14, 1975 My Oldest Daughter is Born

Thirty seven years ago today, I was a pregnant 20 year old with a 3 year old son. When I look at that statement now, it seems so surreal that I was just a girl, although at the time I thought of myself as a woman....I really was so young, so naive, living in a world of fear and extremely low self esteem.

My husband and I were living on Grover Street in Austin. He was in the police academy for Austin PD, and wasn't sure he really wanted another child, as his own childhood had not be idyllic. But in October of 1974 we had a long talk and I explained to him my concerns about Shan growing up an only child, and I didn't want that...since I had been an only child I wanted Shan to have siblings. It is funny now when I think back to that conversation which occurred in our driveway on a beautiful fall evening. He gave me a month to get pregnant, or we would not have another child. I was on a mission from that moment on...to get pregnant.

Since this was the age where we women learned so much about our bodies, how we worked from the inside out...I went to the library for help. And to my 'natural hippie friends' to find out ways of becoming pregnant. (I laugh now, because I should have known that as fertile as I was I would have no trouble getting pregnant really quickly...I had become pregnant with my oldest when I was on the birth control pill) Anyway, with books and my friends advice, I set out on a month of 'I am going to get pregnant!  And I did, whether all the helpful advice really did contribute (such as doing the yoga position headstands immediately after sex) I will never know..all I know is that I got pregnant, and was ecstatically happy.

We gave our parents cards at Christmas announcing that we were expecting, and everyone, including my husband was happy. I loved being pregnant. I didn't have any morning sickness, I felt great and I just really enjoyed being 'with child'. I got books from the library about the developing fetus, and Shan and I would look at them, and he would ask questions and I would find the answers. Again, you need to realize that this was just really the dawning of women actually having access to information about our bodies and the first photos of embryos and fetuses had come out in Life magazine, and then other books were written. It was the age of discovering just who we were as women.

I remember my Mom came over to the house one day, and Shan ran to get the book with the pictures of fetuses, and he said, "Granny, look, this is what the baby looks like inside Mommy's tummy." I thought my Mom was going to faint right there and then. She asked me why in the world was I exposing Shan to such things that were personal and private. She was from a totally different generation where women did not talk about such things, much less show them to their children. 

Anyway, the months went by, and I did the same as I had when I was pregnant with Shan. I sang songs and talked to 'her' all the time. I played music and put the earphones on my belly so she could hear the music. I knew from the first moment that she was a girl, Don't know how, but I just knew. My husband and I picked out names, and only girl names. They had to have the initials KMB, because that was a tradition that my husband wanted carried down. He had the same initials as his own Dad and his grandfather. So we chose Kimberly Michelle Bates. 

I refinished my old crib from when I was a baby, I made curtains, and a bedspread, and we got some really beautiful shag carpeting for the baby's room. Everything matched and was very 'in style' for 1975. She had a Winnie the Pooh theme and I painted quite a few characters from the stories on wood (which was 'in' ). I made a bassinet skirt to match the curtains and all was ready for her entrance into the world.

this was a good car-seat back then! OMG

When I was eight months pregnant, my best friend Mary Jensen (now Hey) held a baby shower for me at her home in South Austin. It was so much fun. I have such fond memories of those days, we were back to nature girls...everything had to be homemade, from bread to baby food!

Mary's friend had made the cake, and it was from seeing it that my desire to become a cake decorator was born.

My husband was in the Police Academy and was going to go somewhere for some firearms/scenarios training out of town. I was more and more afraid as the days grew close to the week he would be gone. It was only 2 weeks before the baby was due, and I was really scared that he would be gone when I went into labor, if I went into labor. My firstborn was born 2 weeks early and my water had broken but I did not go into labor, so they had to give me pitocin to start the contractions. 

When I awoke the morning of July 14  fixed Shan's breakfast and was just not feeling very well. I had been having braxton hicks contractions, although they were not called that back then...just named false labor. I was dilated 2 cm and no one even used the word effaced back then. My doctor said that the baby could come any time now, which added to my fear. When I went to the bathroom I checked myself. Now, this was a new concept to pregnant women in the mid 70's. I was part of the La Leche League, and all of us from our birthing classes had been shown how we could check ourselves to see if we had dilated more. So, it had become a natural response for me to check myself every day. This morning was no different, but this time I felt that there as about a 3 finger width that my cervix was at, and a bulge was coming through. I decided I was going to call the doctor and ask for an appointment. As I started to walk out of the bathroom my water broke. I cannot tell you how I felt at that moment. Frightened because I thought I had caused my water to break by my exam.

I carried that guilt with me until many, many years later when I was doing an OB clinical for my Paramedicine degree. There was a female OB doctor who had to break a woman's bag of water and she allowed me to watch the procedure. I was really stunned at the force and the instrument she used to break it.

Twenty-two years of guilt vanished that night. After talking with the doctor after the procedure, I explained what had happened with me and asked her if I had caused the break in the bag. She assured me that I had not, and that with the way I had described the bulge, it was just ready to break on it's own.

Back, to the 14th of July, 1975 .... My husband was at work, so I called the PD and explained that I was going to the hospital. MY friend Mary drove me to Seton Hospital off of 38th street in Austin. It was the newest and best hospital in Austin at the time. My doctor was just next door at the medical offices, so he was able to come over quite often to see how I was doing. I got all checked in, Mary took Shan home with her, and Ken arrived. I did not start to have contractions, just as in my first birth. So, they started the pitocin and labor began. 

I remember that there was a nurse who was the nurse from hell. She came in and did all the prep work...shaving of the pubic area, gave me an enema, all those wonderful things that were done to us back then. As she was establishing the IV line, she said to me very matter of factly, "This baby is a boy, from the way you are carrying it...it just has to be a boy." and I thought to myself..this woman is really strange. A little later she said, "This baby is not 2 weeks early, it is much too small to be only 2 weeks early. Do you know what can go wrong when a baby is born this early?" I had no idea what she was talking about, and as soon as my doctor got there he ordered a new nurse to be with me. He still stated that the baby was only 2 weeks early, and yes, that it was small,. but some babies are just smaller, and I wasn't to worry about it. We both knew my doctor really well, because my husbands mother worked in his office. We had ultimate faith in his calculations and just put aside the nurses scary comments.

Labor commenced and my husband was very supportive, but he had decided early on that he did not want to be in the delivery room. That was no place for men, he said....until 10:00 pm came around and I was fully mediated and the baby's head was coming through....He decided then that he would go into the delivery room., He had to go wash and gown up, as they wheeled me into the delivery room and got me settled into the stirrups. I thought for sure that my sweet 'girl' baby was going to make her appearance before my husband got there, so I tried as much as I could to not push, to hold her in until he got there. As soon as he arrived and I saw his masked face, I just pushed. In 3 pushes she was out. Kimberly Michelle was born at 10:14 pm, 5 pounds 11 ounces.

She was so beautiful and we both just were amazed and filled with awe and wonder at this beautiful baby GIRL we had created. We both got to hold her and then they took her to the nursery to clean her up. Ken went home and I went to my new 'after birth' room. I had a room mate, and every few hours the nurse would bring her baby to her, for feeding time. But they didn't bring Kimberly to me. I would ask why she wasn't coming, and the nurse just said she was doing fine and that my doctor would come in the morning and that I could see her then. I was totally confused, so I called Ken, and I called my doctor's service, so about 4 in the morning the pediatrician came into the room and explained to me that Kimberly was in an incubator, that she was having a little trouble breathing so they were giving her oxygen. 

When Ken arrived around 8 in the morning, the doctor came back in and explained to us that our baby had hyaline membrane disease. We had no idea what it was. He just said that her lungs were not developed enough, but she was doing great. We got to go to the nursery, scrub up and go in and hold her. It was such a joy to finally get to hold her. I was able to stay in the hospital for 7 days (insurance wasn't so strict back then), and then she was in the hospital for another week, because she developed jaundice. But at the end of that week she came home.

 I remember that for the first couple of months I put her in her bassinet at night and had it right next to the bed. Every little whimper, or if I didn't hear her move, I would lean over to make sure she was all right. I held myself responsible for her early birth, and carried a huge amount of guilt for those 22 years, thinking that she could have died and it would have been my fault. Thank goodness that time have changed where the information internet highway has brought with it the ability to check things out and we can learn the truths of situations instead of living in hidden fear .

I kept very good records of how much she ate, her growth, her weight. I wanted everything for her to be just perfect, and by the time she was about 3 months old, you couldn't even tell she had been born early. She had such rolls on her, she was a chubby kissable baby girl. She was so tiny that she couldn't nurse properly, so I pumped my breasts and with the help of the La Leche League, I was able to nurse her as she got older.

And so began Kimberly's life.....and with it a continuation of my deepest hearts desire...to be a MOM. I loved being a Mom. When everyone else was busy with establishing their careers, I was just so happy being at home with my children, going on play dates, taking them to parks, museums, swimming lessons, etc.

I watch her today.....37 years later, the mother of 4 beautiful children of her own, and I marvel that I was given the gift of having her as a daughter. The life lessons she has taught me along the way (some pretty rocky years) are so valuable, and I am so very proud of her. Thank you God, for the gift of my precious daughter Kimberly.

Kimberly and Logan, born January 12, 2012