December 9, 2011
It may have been while we were living on Drinker Street that I decided I wanted to be a mommy when I grew up. My mother told me that is all I wanted to be. Could I have expressed that desire when I was only two – three – four years old? Or were we living in Larksville/Plymouth when I said that? My brother was born in the spring of 1934, in Dunmore, and I don’t know when we moved to Larksville/Plymouth where there would be more work for my father. I remember seeing the flood waters in Wilkes-Barre, from the higher elevation of Larksville, and I think that flood took place in 1936.
Sometime during the Buttonwood School years, we sang “Two Little Roses” in class. I remember liking that song so very much. It tells the tale of two little roses which ‘crawled along the fence, clambered up the wall, and climbed into the window, to make a morning call.’ How sweet a song! It has stayed in my heart and mind all these many years.
After my marriage at the age of twenty-one, I was so terribly disappointed when my menses still continued to occur. As I mentioned in my first paragraph, I so wanted to be a mommy! But I had to learn to be patient. Fate would decide if and when I would be a mommy.
My husband was still attending college at Penn State, and I was working in an office. I was living with my parents. Finally it happened. Over a year had passed, when at 4:30 a.m. on December 8th, ‘the water broke’ and my Mom took me to Tyler Memorial Hospital in the small rural town of Meshoppen. We thought it best to get me there quickly. No one knows just how fast or how slow the series of steps occur. We THOUGHT there was going to be a baby born soon. Fate decided otherwise.
Well, all day, all night, again all day, most of the night, nothing doing; I was in labor for forty-seven and a half hours. The two grandmothers-to-be had been crying before each time they came to my room – I could see it on their faces. I remember that I had been hallucinating a little during that time period, due to pain, or to some medications given to me, I don’t know which.
At the same time, the Father-To-Be was at Coast Guard Boot Camp in Cape May, New Jersey. The doctor made up his mind at midnight that I had to have a Caesarean done as soon as possible.
The staff scrambled all over trying to get an anesthesiologist from Scranton or Wilkes-Barre, a surgeon from somewhere, enough nurses who could handle it, etcetera. I think they had to search in a few towns for all this help.
Finally everyone came from here and there, the crew was ready, and since the baby’s head was already engaged in the canal, anesthesia by spinal injection was chosen as the route. I had never thought of other than a normal birth.
The lower part of my body became numb, someone was pricking my chest with a straight pin, I felt no pain, just the pressure of the pin. All systems “go”. I could hear their voices, as I listened to their directions and decisions. I could feel the pressure on my abdomen of the instruments used. Then as the baby was extracted, I could feel no pain, but movement.
On the underside of the overhead ‘chandelier-type’ very large lighting system were reflected images of what was going on. I was not completely ‘in the dark’ as to what was happening. Then at exactly 3:33 a.m. – since then, I always notice when 3:33 shows up on any clock -- my first child was born! I could see the clock’s face on the wall, because I was still awake and would remain so for a long time. At last! I became a mommy!
I’ll bet that everyone there was deliriously happy to have saved both baby and mother. The day was December 10th. I am thankful, so thankful, and I feel blessed. The happy Father-To-Be suddenly became a Daddy in Cape May. But he didn’t see his first-born for another two weeks, when he came home for Christmas.
When I was presented with my first baby, who had a black and blue injury on his head due to the forceps, it was an indescribable moment full of thanksgiving, loving feelings, joy, and honor. At last I, as Mommy, could sing “Two Little Roses” to my new baby. (By the way, the injury was mild, and the blueness went away from his head. He was fine within two or three days.)
I have sung that beautiful sweet song to all of my six children, all of my grandchildren, and even children I have cared for. That little song will live forever in this family. I even painted a little canvas of a house with two little roses at the windowsill.
TWO LITTLE ROSES
One merry summer day
Two roses were at play;
All at once they took a notion
They would like to run away!
Queer little roses,
Funny little roses,
To like to run away!
To like to run away! They stole along my fence;
They clambered up my wall;
They climbed into my window
To make a morning call!
Queer little roses,
Funny little roses,
To make a morning call! To make a morning call!
–Julia P. Ballard.
I'll see you at the Corner Post...
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