Saturday afternoon (December 5, 1964)
Dear Mom & Dad,
How are you? Fine I hope! We are all three fine here. Randi is the greatest. (We changed our minds about how to spell her name. We dropped the e & spell it Randi.) She’s so pretty. I guess I’m prejudiced though. Her eyes have almost completely changed already. They were blue (about the color of this ink) but I held her up in the sunlight this morning and they were charcoal brown.You can tell how dark her eyes are on the picture by you can’t tell about her widow's peak. They took the picture Mon. (She was a day old.)
I had a real easy time of it. Did Wayne tell you about my false alarm? I was admitted to the hospital about 2 p.m. and discharged about 5 p.m. I woke up about 7 a.m. and could feel contractions. They were about 15 minutes apart. I wasn’t worried because I felt really good. Wayne and I went shopping. I had a little bit of show Friday night and Dr. Hogan said for me to drop in his office about 1:30 Saturday afternoon if anything else happened. I went shopping but Wayne made me stay in the car while he picked some things up. When I got to the Dr’s office my pains were real irregular. They were going up and down (8-7-6-5-7-8 minutes apart.) Dr. Hogan’s nurse told me that he was at Lutheran Hospital and had 2 women who were in hard labor and for me to go check in. We didn’t really think anything would happen though because they were so irregular. I came out of the office and Wayne was reading a magazine. I said “let’s go.” And he said, “where?” I told him, “to the hospital.”
As soon as I stopped at the house to get ready my pains started to get real far apart. Then one was 40 minutes apart. I told the admitting lady that it was a false alarm. They took me to the 4th floor and had me prepped. When they finished that, Dr. Hogan examined me. He didn’t say anything. Then the nurse came in & told me I could take a walk down the hall to find Wayne. I walked down the hall and we sat there and talked for about 1 ½ hours. My pains were 10 minutes apart and real easy. I went back to the labor room and they checked me, called Dr. Hogan and he said that I could go home.
I wanted to go home because I had only eaten a wee little bit of ice cream and had a ½ glass of milk since the night before. They told me that I could eat. As soon as I got to the car the pains started to get hard. Wayne fixed a steak for me and I drank a little bit of milk. After I ate that I sat here for a little while. They were hard but they weren’t coming any closer. I threw up the steak and milk. Wayne called Dr. Hogan and told him about it. He said that it was probably another false alarm but to come in.
On the way to the hospital they were pretty hard and about 5-6 minutes apart but still weren’t regular. They examined me and went out of the room. As soon as they left I got sick to my stomach. The nurse came back in and said that she just told Wayne that it would be about 8 hours but since I was throwing up she cut it down to 4 ½. She told me that Randi’s head was dropping into position and that was what was making me sick. They gave me a shot of demerol. Then I started to feel real drunk and floaty. I fell asleep for about an hour, had some more pains and fell asleep again. The next time I was awake for a little while and they took me to the delivery room. It seemed like I just laid there for hours waiting for things to happen. The nurse that was with me looked and sounded just like Lois White. She had to help in scratching my nose the whole time. Wouldn’t you know, as soon as they fastened my arms down my nose started to itch.
I don’t know what kind of medicine they gave me in the labor room but I sure felt giddy. I heard Dr. Hogan come in and I said, “Where’s Dr. Hogan?” He was in the other room scrubbing up. I kept asking where he was and he kept saying, “here I am.” It sounded like we were playing hide and seek. I rolled my head around so much looking for him that the back of my head, my neck, and side of my face felt bruised. I was so sleepy that I didn’t know what to do. When I heard someone say, “Do you want to go to sleep or do you want to stay awake?” I wish I had stayed awake. I can remember some of the things that happened after that but they were all jumbled up. I wish they hadn’t given me that shot in the labor room. After that shot I was not one to make a decision to sleep or watch.
The next thing that I remember real well was that they were telling me that it was a girl. I was really surprised because we don’t know anyone out here that has a girl. I just figured that they forgot how to make girls. After that I remember going down the hall in a bed and they stopped and put Randi in bed with me. Wayne was there and it seemed like about 20 people were standing around me smiling. I kept on crying and saying that was the best Christmas present I could ever get. Any pain I had was all forgotten as soon as I saw Randi. They let Wayne stay with me for a couple of hours in my room. He went home to get some sleep and about 7:00 a.m. they got me out of bed to walk to the bathroom. Boy was I hungry and thirsty. Wayne came back about 9:00 a.m. but wasn’t allowed in ‘till 10:00. He ate lunch with me and we called you when we were done.
It’s almost a week since all this happened and still yet when I look at Randi I can’t believe it. Wayne just sits and watches her sleep sometimes. Whenever he’s home he won’t let me feed her because he wants to do it. It sure does make you feel funny when you think that a year ago there was nothing and now there's a beautiful little girl with dimples and fingernails, and eyelashes laying in the crib asleep. I told Wayne that he’d better let me feed her once in a while this weekend or she’ll think that he’s her mother. We took some pictures of her in the hospital. We’ll send them to you when we get them back. She’s frowning on most of them because the light hurt her eyes.
It sure does seem funny to have all this excitement and not have you two and Wayne’s Mom and Dad to share it with.
I haven’t gotten the package from June yet but it will probably be here soon.
Thank you very much for the roses. They were beautiful. When I saw the nurse coming down the hall I figured that they were from you. Everyone on the floor thought that they were pretty.
I’d better go now. I’ll get Wayne to write. Randi sends you a big hug and a slobbery kiss.
Love, Lee
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