What blog would be complete without the telling of a birth story! Today is my third daugher's birthday! On my children's birthday, I always recount the day they were born - orally - but now I get to write it down and post it for everyone to enjoy!
When I was pregnant with this daugher, the first murmurs of the dangers of alcohol while pregnant emerged. Fine, whatever, no drinking - yes, I had had a little to drink before I knew I was pregnant but what can a couple of glasses of wine do? The more I thought about it, the more I became convinced that those innocent glasses of wine could very well spell the destruction of my baby. I was always worried about the safety of my little fetuses and in this case, I became obsessed that I had done something wrong and had jeopardized his/her (well it turned out to be a 'her') well being. So I started an OCD campaign of prayer begging that everything would be okay. I promised that if the baby were okay, I would name her Monica after Augustine's mother as a testament to the power of perseverance and prayer as demonstrated by the salvation of her son. I drove not only myself crazy but everyone around me!
As the pregnancy progressed with boring regularity, I began to believe that those few glasses of wine had not rendered my unborn child a victim to Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and decided on another name - Margaret Mary. Then my cousin gave birth to a baby girl and promptly called her Margaret Mary. Understand the right of first dibs on a name - my cousin had taken this name and it was therefore, off the books!
In the Fall, while about seven months pregnant, I went with my sister to visit my cousins in California. My aunt had cancer and although the prognosis was good, we thought it might be a good idea to visit - just in case you know. We had a wonderful time reconnecting with our double first cousins and I remember my uncle providing me with a special stain to take back. I was into furniture refinishing at the time and was in the process of redoing the old oak dining room table I had salvaged from my parent's garage. The leaf was missing and it was in poor shape but I loved the Queen Anne curved legs of that table. I had admired a recently refinished end table at my aunt and uncle's place and when he told me that he had mixed up the stain himself, I was a goner. I took that stain back and lovingly applied it to the table thinking how appropriate - my father's sister's husband who was also my mother's brother had given me this stain which, when applied, seemed to link us geographically across the miles.
Mu aunt died on New Year's Eve that year. My daughter was born a month later. The day she was born, I had eaten three whistle dogs for lunch - they just seemed so good! I had also eaten a dinner of boiled corned beef and potatoes - one of my favourites! When my first labour pain came, I alerted everyone and went home to have a bath and shave my legs, wash my hair - plenty of time right? Suddenly those whistle dogs and corned beef mouthfuls did not sit so well - up they came and to this day, I cannot even think about eating corned beef. It went from a few mild pains to urgent in an hour, and I was hustled to St Joseph's hospital in real distress. My doctor at the time, Dr Joseph Madigan, was battling his own demons and I had been going to his replacement Dr Silang. He didn't make it in time and a tiny perfect little Asian doctor - Dr Degusi - attended the birth of little Monica. Dr Silang arrived after the fact to pat my hand and tell me everything was alright and beam at me with his gold capped teeth.
While I was 'recovering' (five blissful days at those times) - Dr Madigan came one afternoon to see me. I just looked at him and he looked at me and we squeezed each other's hands. He nodded and bobbed, and smiling, backed out the door. I knew that some healing had taken place for him at that time. The special bond of doctor and patient had extended to a deeper more significant level and that he came to see me after the birth of my daughter, was an admission that while he had not exactly been there for me, we had been in together in his thoughts!
Monica was born with a full head of wild black hair. I sent a picture of her to my brother who was in the Canary Islands at the time (an intervention by my father), to let him know we had chosen him as godfather. He sent me back a card with $5 dollars in it saying 'congratulations, get her a hair cut'. Many were outraged when they heard, but I just laughed and thought 'oh that Greg'.
Monica cried for the first three months of her life - colic no doubt - but it never registered or bothered me. I was happy to carry her around all the time, cooing and murmuring into her little pink ear, as she wailed. One afternoon while I was trying to listen to Saturday Afternoon at the Met, our downstairs neighbour came up and pounded on the door. He was a policeman and slept irregular hours. When I opened the door to his bleary face and red-rimmed eyes, he said, 'Either shut that baby up or turn down the damn radio'. Monica stirred on my shoulder and stopped crying. It was over - whatever had caused her discomfort must have been scared away by my distraught neighbour! I still carried her around all the time but the difference was she was not crying, but cooing and smiling at the world around her. Happy birthday Monica.
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