VACATION 1969/CHILDBIRTH 1970

        Since I’ve spent the last two posts back in the late 1960s and early 1970s, I may as well finish them off. John and I purchased the house in which I currently live in February 1969. Boy, talk about a change in our circumstances. I may have mentioned this before, but we went from paying $92.00 a month for rent that included a couple of the utilities, to paying either $211.00 or $204.00 a month plus all the utilities. We didn’t eat out much and our entertainment budget was nonexistent.

          Earlier that year, John’s good friend Jim had left his wife and another woman in our circle of friends left her husband and daughter. They got on a Greyhound bus and left town for California together. Now this was a scandal, and it served to support our idea that something(s) had been going on with some of our friends that were partying way far down in the south end. I don’t think we ever went, or maybe we went once. Anyway, we didn’t want to go and there was a bit of talk about what went on at those parties.

          We always tried to take our vacation after the kids returned to school in September. In December 1969, we needed to take a cheap vacation, so we decided we’d drive to California to see Jim. After that visit, we’d go to Las Vegas and see the musical “Hair.” We didn’t call ahead, just showed up and knocked on the door. You could have knocked Jim over with a feather. He figured all his friends in Seattle thought poorly of him for his departure with another man’s wife, and would never visit or speak to him again.

          Jim answered the door in his bathrobe and was on the phone with the woman. It was Christmas time and she had had to return to Seattle because of her daughter. Poor Jim was spending Christmas and New Years alone…until we showed up. He was so glad to see us it was almost pitiful.

          Now, Jim was a great guy with a sense of humor that could, and often did, make you groan. I first met him as the “cat under the sheets in John’s bed” the year John and I became engaged. John’s mother came to John’s room and told him he had a visitor. Jim had followed right behind her. And, there I was naked in John’s bed. We’d gone to my company’s Christmas party the night before. After, we went to John’s to get him some clothes so he could stay with me at my place. Once at his house, John decided he shouldn’t be driving in his condition. So, we went to bed.

          Jim’s standing in the doorway and I’m buried under the covers hoping John will get up and take him away. Instead, John pats my fanny and tells Jim it’s just his cat under there. Embarrassed beyond belief, I stick my head out and John goes, “Jim, I’d like you to meet my fiancé, Paula. Paula, this is Jimmy.” Jim almost always brought this up and laughed about how he met me every time I saw him after that. In fact, if I were to see him today, he’d probably have some comment to make about a “cat.” I got over being embarrassed and would laugh with him and John.

          Over the years, whenever we went to California, we’d go see Jim and his wife. Whenever they came up this way, I would try to arrange some kind of party where everyone could get together and see them. My sons grew up knowing Jim, and there’s a particular kind of joke that they refer to as, “Uncle Jimmy humor.”

          That particular vacation stands out for another reason…it was when I got pregnant with AJ. During that year, I had several fallopian tube infections which seemed to go away as long as I was on the antibiotic. A couple of weeks later, it would return. I cannot tell you how painful such an infection is…it’s agony. With the last one, I waited through the weekend and went into the Primate Center and asked my boss to please get me an appointment in the Women’s Clinic. He did so and I painfully waited to see this man.

          I was supposed to see the head of OBGYN, but he wasn’t actually in the building that day. Instead, my appointment turned out to be with his Chief Resident. Now this person was extremely annoyed to have his schedule screwed up by having his boss’ colleague pull strings. His initial exam was surface only and it hurt like hell. In fact, he didn’t bring any gentleness to the exam until he got a look inside. Then, he was so amenable and helpful you would have thought I might die.

          That day, and the following day, I had to have a penicillin injection. The needle was the size of a pencil lead and the big barrel held a thick solution that looked like pudding. After each injection, I had to wait for 30 minutes so they could make sure I wasn’t going to have a bad reaction to so much medication. For a decade or so after that, whenever I had to have a penicillin injection, the site developed a huge mosquito bite-like reaction.

          My follow-up visits once the infection was cleared up for good were with the head of OBGYN. He told me it was unlikely I could get pregnant because of the scarring. We could figure that out in one of two ways. He could do a very painful test or I could take my temperature each morning to see if I was ovulating before he did the painful test. He highly recommended I take my temperature first.

          The first month, I was faithful about taking my temperature and it did, indeed, look as though I was ovulating. The second month, I remained faithful to the thermometer, but John and I were on vacation. We had lots of free time to do stuff before leaving for California, like having sex often. I kept putting John off because, “My temperature is going down tomorrow. I’ll get pregnant.” Finally, after almost a week (which was a really long time for us way back then), I couldn’t stand it either and we had a wonderful time in bed.

          The next morning, my temperature went down, only to go up and stay up for nine months. Yes, I could ovulate and I could get pregnant. How about that. I even told John the next morning when I saw the thermometer, that I was pregnant. He insisted I was wrong, I couldn’t be, it wasn’t possible. HAH!!!

          So, when we went to see Jim, I was pregnant. When we went to Las Vegas, I was pregnant. We returned to celebrate New Years with Jim, and I had a lot to drink that night. Back then, there hadn’t been any published studies about alcohol and fetuses. I’ve wondered once those studies came out if those drinks harmed AJ in any way.

          We returned home and I think it was February when I saw my doctor again. John was still convinced I wasn’t pregnant. The day of my appointment, I was so sick. I couldn’t even have a small piece of gum without having to run to the bathroom to throw up. Once the doctor confirmed my pregnancy, I stopped throwing up and never had morning sickness. John called that afternoon and I told him, yes, you’re going to be a daddy. He spent the rest of the afternoon and evening throwing up. The next day one of my bosses said John and I were sick because I was pregnant.

          Now, you have to understand that John and I had made the decision to not have children. The world was in such a sorry state, it didn’t make sense to bring a child into such a place. For nine months, I could have had a cold. John wasn’t terribly interested in my pregnancy. That made me feel bad, but what could I do. I just had to keep on gestating.

          I left the Primate Center the end of August and that’s about the time John began to get nervous. I don’t remember the due date I was given for AJ, but John called me every other hour that day. The baby is supposed to be born today, what the heck’s going on. Following the due date, John continued to call me during the day to make sure I wasn’t giving birth right that second.

          Early morning September 16^th, I was pretty sure I was in labor. We got up and went to University Hospital. My doctor came to see me and told me he went home at 5:00 pm. John walked the halls for hours. After lunch, I was hooked up to a Pitocin drip…that drug is a miracle worker…and they placed an electrode on the baby’s head. John went to get me some ice chips (I was starving) and my doctor's intern checked me. The next thing I know the intern is shouting about how the baby’s coming.

          They pushed my gurney out of the room, past John who was plastered up against the wall with a cup of ice chips, and into the delivery room. A nurse ran alongside chanting, “Don’t bear down, breath, breath.”, and panting in my ear. My doctor had been pulled from whatever class he’d been teaching and came dashing into the room pulling on his gloves. Eleven (11) contractions after they started the Pitocin drip, AJ was born. 

          I got to carry him to the nursery on my gurney and everyone from the Primate Center was waiting in the hall (They’d been trekking down every day to see if I or another pregnant employee had yet arrived.). John was there too (They didn’t let dads in the delivery room in 1970.) and what he’d ignored was suddenly real. The little swaddled red-faced adorable bundle in my arms was his son, his child. John, from one millisecond to the next immediately and forever after loved his son AJ.