It's a Girl

The mother-daughter relationship is the most complex. ~Wynonna Judd

Suddenly, through birthing a daughter, a woman finds herself face to face not only with an infant, a little girl, a woman-to-be, but also with her own unresolved conflicts from the past and her hopes and dreams for the future....Elizabeth Debold

 

June 4 is my daughter's birthday and since we are going back in time in this blog, I'd like to write about her birth.  She will probably squirm a lot to know I wrote it but I am writing it just the same, after all is is my story too.

 

People like the story about me meeting James in a roller rink but I never did learn to skate.  We went skating many times over the years especially after the kids came, but I was either pregnant or riding herd on a little kid; eventually all desire to learn left me.  Maybe I will put it on a bucket list.... Nah!


Brenda was born 2 days before our first anniversary.  I was pretty ignorant about pregnancies and babies so I didn't know what to expect, but Jim was convinced that we would have a boy, being he was a good  ole boy from Oklahoma, he believed the first born had to be a boy.  We were living in Oklahoma at the time on a dairy.  The house in the above painting is where we lived, near Sweetwater  OK, and the car is the one we owned then.  (The windmill is from South Dakota--artist license.)  I got plenty of fresh milk and fresh air and I had an awesome neighbor named Naomi, who had 5 kids and offered me a lot of advice and help.


Of course we were anxious for the baby to arrive and the last weeks dragged on until the morning we decided it was time.  Bright and early we fetched my mother in law and headed for the hospital which was 60 miles away.  We didn't want to take any chances.  But it was too soon for delivery, and the three of us spent a very long day walking in the park, or sitting in the waiting room until evening when I was finally admitted to the maternity ward.  Jim was so happy he rounded up all the relatives he could find and they wandered in and out of the labor room.  At one point I noticed Jim's cousin sitting in the room like he was at a barbecue or something and I had only just met him.  If had been bold and knew how to swear then, I would have told everyone to get the hell out; finally Jim's aunt ran everyone out including him.  He gave up because this process was taking too long, and he went to the car to sleep.  In the wee hours of the morning, Jim's mom woke him to tell him he had a daughter; he thought she was lying to him.  He didn't stay in denial long, and was mighty proud to have a daughter.


Three days later, when it was time to leave the hospital he showed up with a new dress that I got into but it impeded my ability to breath, apparently he thought I would be the same size as before.  He took Brenda and me around to all the relatives to show her off where I sat on the edge of chairs in the tight dress breathing shallowly, until mercifully we went home to begin the new journey of parenthood.   My life was changed forever.  I love you Brenda, my only daughter.