First Monday In May And A Trip Down Memory Lane

It was 37 years, 353 days ago that I was in the race to celebrate my very first Mothers Day for me. I was in my 37th week of pregnancy with my twin sons. Only five days to go till Mothers Day and these boys made me wait until the Wednesday after to make me a mom. So, even though they will be 38 on May 12th, this Sunday will be my 37th official Mothers Day.~sigh~ Since I enjoy following so many girls pregnancies, I thought I'd do a post about my own:) I can't believe that this is going to sound like one of those "When I was a kid, I tromped 5 miles through the snow in a blizzard to get to school" posts. In many ways, it will sound exactly like that.

My first pregnancy ended in miscarriage in my third month. No one really talked about it back then so I pretty much grieved in silence. Five months later I was pregnant again and waited until I was 5 1/2 months along to see my doctor, Dr. William White in South Laguna. He was the only doctor at the time in our area here at the coast who started allowing husbands to be a part of the birth IF we took a Natural Childbirth Class. When I got to his office, he asked why I waited so long to start prenatal care. I told him it was the first available appointment I could get with him. So, we did a pregnancy test (Yep) and he was cracking up but it was for the record. I was huge by this time and he put me on a 1000 calorie a day diet to slow my weight down. No ultrasounds back then and only heartbeat checked and everything sounded great. One strong heartbeat. I about starved to death trying to stick to only 1000 calories per day and kept gaining weight. I used to walk a mile to the store one way and back each day. (See, the snow part:) Truth is that we had only one 1948 pick up truck and Corky needed it to work! So, I walked. At 7 1/2 months along, I didn't count weeks back then, I was in the checkout line and the "BABY" decided to do a shift maneuver and dove around to my side, leaving my frontside almost flat. The checker stared in total shock and watched me move the huge lump back to the front. I knew then that there was something going on inside that only one baby could be doing. Too many lumps and bumps.
I called the doctor and told him I was starving and I felt I may be having twins. He asked if there was a history of them in the family. Ummm, yeah, 5 sets of them that I knew of, and my grandmother on my dad's side was a twin. He sent me to the lab for an xray, yep, no ultrasounds and screens back then. The tech was a woman who lived across the street from me and with lots of the lead blankets on my stomach, took the xray. She couldn't tell me the results, the doctor had to "Read" the xray first. But she said it was up on the board in the room on the way to the bathroom in case I needed to pee. I peeked in and saw the most beautiful sight. Two babies like a mirror image, head to head and feet to feet. Elsie, my neighbor and tech made me promise not to say anything to the doctor and let him call me with the news. I loved Elsie, she had two darling little boys who would come over to my house and visit me every day. Dr. White called about two hours later and was apologizing up a storm and told me to throw out that nasty diet and start eating my brains out. No Problem!! At my appointment the next day he had to really search and as I manipulated the lumps in my belly, he found the second heartbeat. He told me to stay off my feet and rest. They could come anytime. Okay, I did this for two weeks and about went out of my mind. Corky brought me bouquets of black licorice home every night. That's what I craved and what stopped my tears. I continued to walk every day even though I looked like a beached whale. I thought I would forget how to drive as I couldn't fit behind any steering wheel even with the seat pushed back all the way.

We hurried up and got in the childbirth class before it was too late. We got three out of eight behind us before the boys came. The instructor was so excited because ours was the first set of twins for her. She also taught Lamaze. She was the ultimate barefoot hippie earth mother and it was 1971. Corky was 21 and I was 22 and we were leaving the hippie life behind for the real world. She taught us that no matter how much pain we would be experiencing, just say NO TO DRUGS. She took such an interest in me having two babies and how I was going to manage it all and put a feather in her career cap! She nursed her three year old son as she taught the class, seriously. He would walk up, lift her shirt and start drinking away:) I knew I was going to breastfeed but I figured I'd probably stop before they could ask for "Boobie".:)

I am going to stop for today because Hannah is here now and this is getting long. I am doing it mainly for myself to remember and you are welcome to take the journey back in time with me. I will post part 2 tomorrow. It starts to get interesting if I remember correctly:) Have a great Monday and I hope your weather is as beautiful as ours is!

Love and Hugs, Laurie