Tuesday, June 12, 2012

The Post My Mom Wrote

Events Leading up to June 13, 1975

Pregnancy.

I had just started a brand new job, was just getting into the swing of it when I discovered I was pregnant with my first child. When we made our calls to our parents to give them the good news (“Guess what, you’re going to be grandparents!”) Juli’s Dad’s mom said “Oh, I know, isn’t it exciting??” My best friend, my sister-in-law Lynne, was also pregnant with her first child!

Lynne and I were both so excited to be pregnant together that when they came down to Dover for a visit, we went to the old Woolco Department Store and bought two maternity tops, stuffed pillows underneath them, and modeled for our husbands! How silly we were to be looking forward to those maternity clothes when we still had 7 months to go!!

Our due dates were about 2 weeks apart!

Morning, Night, Everyday Morning Sickness:

Lynne didn’t suffer like I did through all the nausea! Lucky girl!!

My best friend for most of the 9 months was those sleeves of saltines that I kept on my bedside table and carried with me everywhere. Before my feet hit the floor in the morning, cracker crumbs littered the bed. I couldn’t go near the meat case in the grocery store and as much as I loved to cook, I couldn’t eat the food I cooked. It smelled delicious the whole time I was cooking, but then when I would sit down to eat, I’d totally lose my appetite. Still can’t understand where all those pounds came from since it didn’t seem like I could keep enough down to have gained all that weight.

Due Date:

First Lynne’s due date came and went, still no baby, and she was gaining on my due date of June 1st. Then my due date came and went, still no babies! Finally she had Matthew, which gave me hope that at some point I would deliver my baby…after all, I certainly couldn’t have mine before hers! LOL

I don’t remember the exact date my mother came up from South Carolina to be with us, but I do remember that she was here at least 10 days beforehand. She took over the cooking, laundry, etc. as we all waited for my time to come.

Mom, being the helpful person she was, decided to see if she could help move things along a little faster. So we went running around for a couple days to used furniture stores, yard sales, shopping til I would drop. In an out of her Challenger, up and down steps, lots of walking…No luck, baby was still very happy where he/she was! Leave it to Mom to step it up a little bit…on Monday of the week our baby made an appearance, Mom decided that we should go strawberry picking!! Now, I am eternally grateful that there were no cell phones with cameras in existence way back then as I struggled to get my enormous self down in a strawberry picking position and then get myself back up again! And the whole time, Mom and I are laughing hysterically at ourselves and what we were doing!! (The strawberries were delicious!!)

My mother continued her helping ways through the week, serving me watermelon and corn on the cob hoping that might get things moving. What really got things rolling, though, was her asking me if I knew what Friday was. Heck no…I wasn’t thinking that far ahead! When she told me that Friday was Friday the 13th, I just looked at her and said, “that’s the day I’ll have this baby!”

FRIDAY, June 13, 1975

Sure enough, I woke up Friday in labor and the three of us took off for Dover Air Force Base Hospital where Julianne was born on June 13th at 1:37 p.m., the first grand-daughter on both sides!!



1 comment:

  1. Aww, great post! Tell your mom thanks for sharing :)

    ReplyDelete