The Beginning — Blessing or Nightmare?

July 22, 1984, just an ordi­nary Sun­day. Your dad went to visit your grandpa for lunch, same as we have both done every week­end since your dad moved me up from Geor­gia back on Jan­u­ary 11th. I didn’t feel so well so I stayed home this Sun­day; the tox­emia made it too uncom­fort­able to move around. Time went by and by and by, then finally your dad came home. Some­thing was dif­fer­ent; his face had so much guilt on it as he walked toward me up the stairs. He assured me noth­ing was wrong as he locked the bath­room door behind him. He never was a good liar. It was to be weeks before it dawned on me why the water was run­ning and what he was doing in there. Of course I jumped in the car and sped over to the only friend’s house I knew. I never put the scent of the apart­ment and the sent of your dad together, so I sat at her house cry­ing. “I think he is hav­ing an affair.” and began to tell her of all the signs.

Skip right through July 23rd to the 24th, noth­ing unusual about these days; your dad was dis­tant and I spent my day afraid we were gonna lose him. I walked around  like some pathetic exis­tence of a per­son. What would I do if he didn’t want us? I had no one in New York; I was from Geor­gia and all alone. Another day of him being in con­trol of my emo­tions. I was a wreck; I’m sure you could feel it. I’m sorry, but I didn’t know.

A visit to the doc­tor that morn­ing was a lit­tle scary for me; Dr. Etkin kind of yelled at me for gain­ing 50 lbs of water in two days. My blood pres­sure had shot up to 160/90 (don’t know if that’s right but the num­ber sticks in my head). I should have kept off my feet and had them ele­vated like he’d told me. I was so dis­traught and pre­oc­cu­pied I didn’t under­stand when Dr. Etkin said “…induce you tomor­row.” It was if he had said some­thing in French. I did how­ever under­stand “I’m wor­ried you’ll go into con­vul­sions that will kill you and your baby.” I imme­di­ately asked for your dad. Once he was in the room I calmed down and under­stood what the doc­tor was saying.

Later back at home, there I sat, on the couch feet up. Noth­ing to do but watch TV and think. So much swelling from the tox­emia today, but I was a ner­vous wreck and I just couldn’t stay still. I know, I know, doctor’s orders were bed rest, but…I had to stay busy. A busy mind is distracted.

It was the night of July 24th around 10:30pm, I was so ner­vous around your edgy dad. Noth­ing I said, noth­ing I did was right; he wasn’t very nice to me, or at all. I was hav­ing pains, but that was nor­mal so I didn’t give them a sec­ond thought. I went to the bath­room; I had to go so bad. As I sat there lit­er­ally shaky from my nerves I felt a pop and then I really started to go. Then there was this clear stuff…ok now that was unusual! I called Dr. Etkin and he told me to go to the hos­pi­tal. I guess telling me I would be induced the next day scared you right out of me!

I Didn’t Know What Hard Was