Finding a small older home to rent in Denver proper, we moved... to 1699 S.Lowell Blvd. And soon enough, not being sure how long it would take him to make any money to support us, I started working as a nurse's aide on the graveyard shift downtown at St. Anthony's, Denver's major hospital at the time. Orthopedic Floor.
Insurance sales were hard to come by that year somehow. So we existed solely on my minimum wage job. Ouch.
I couldn't sleep in the day because D. would leave for work after I got home in the morning. Most often he'd come home for dinner, then leave for the evening to go to prospects' homes to try and sell. Somehow that was unproductive seemingly forever. So it was a struggle.
Usually he'd get home by nine, so I would have an hour to sleep before waking up to get ready and drive downtown to get to work by 11 pm.
In the daytime, I would take my little babes in a wagon for long walks. Because if I stayed home, I knew I would inevitably doze off. And for the same reason, at work when it was time to sit down and chart my patients' reports, I had to stand instead of sit on the stools to do those write ups.
Rinse and repeat. But we were young; it was manageable.
After six months we tried a morning preschool. Not a great experience, so not for long. But soon we found the perfect babysitter. Our kids loved going to her home so much, that they didn't even want to leave and come back home!
So I slept four hours every morning and it was great. NO more mornings where the police pulled me over driving home erratically at 7am, or mornings when D. would come out and find me fast asleep with my head on the steering wheel.
At least I parked in front of the right house!
But the BEST PART of all was buying our first home... 4185 S. Dale Ct, Sheridan, CO...
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| 1973- $18,500 GI bill, 0 down! Sad- huge tree we planted in front yard is gone. |
... and then getting a new job at Swedish Medical Center in Englewood...
graveyard shift Newborn Nursery!
YAY! Dream job!
Back in the day there was no rooming in for the babies and moms, so we had those precious newborns all to ourselves for our entire shift. Feeding, changing and cuddling babies all night long. What could be better than that?
The only drawback happened when we first got the newborns from the Labor and Delivery nurses, and we would be the ones to weigh and measure them. Weighing them on the scale was no problem, but measuring their height was scary! Super scary!
With just one hand, we had to hold them upside down over the countertop by their ankles, and use a measuring tape with the other to ascertain the exact inches! Because they were curled up still from being inside the womb, and that apparently was the best way to "uncurl" them to get an accurate height. Who does that? I had to be sure I was 1000% awake whenever doing so, and still it terrified me. Every single time.
So life was good, very good. And fortuitously many months later, a teenage Hispanic girl gave birth to a newborn daughter that she was giving up for adoption. Instantly I fell in love, and came home to announce that we were going to adopt this tiny cutie! However. Back at work that night, I was told the girl's aunt had convinced this 16 year old to keep her baby. My heart crumbled.
But at least it did make me aware that I was baby hungry and ready to welcome #3 sooner than later. So I started dreaming about it. And planning.
Unfortunately as a couple we were really bad at communicating, so when I told my husband I was expecting and had turned in two weeks notice at work, it didn't go over as well as it could have.
In fact, he didn't speak to me for the entire pregnancy. Ummm, it was a hard time. Really hard.
Another especially hard thing was early on in this pregnancy, when I was told at a regular appointment (probably at three months) that there was no discernible heart beat, no evidence the fetus was growing at all, and I had probably already lost the baby. Just wait and come back in two weeks to verify.
Not knowing was a bizarre torture. That was the most miserable two weeks of all.
No choice but to wait it out and return in two weeks. Exam revealed that not only was there a heartbeat and a viable baby, but that now there was a good chance I was expecting twins!! Hold my root beer float!
Roller coasters were never my thing, but that seemed to be the ride I unknowingly signed up for.
It took another month until the next exam to find out that twinning was not the case either.
On top of that, there were some other issues with my OB GYN. Well why not?
Normally the Drs. call the shots, but somehow I had picked up a book by Adele Davis, maybe the pioneer of nutrition in the 20th Century. I had grown up on Wonder bread, margarine, and canned vegggies... like most of us back in the day, and I had come to the point now I was searching for better options.
And Adele championed things like raw milk, whole grains, home grown vegetables, etc. Packaged bread, among other things, was poison, and she was vehemently against prenatal vitamins because of the iron in them. Iron of course is foundational to health, but iron filings are toxic, and that was what was in the bread and vitamins, etc. Still is, by the way.
So I refused to take the prenatals, and my Dr. found that confrontational. You were conditioned to think Drs. were almost Gods, and never question. Apparently I had missed the memo.
Oh well. I made beef liver and onions for dinner 3 times a week instead, and to his credit D.Wayne never once complained, not did my two littles. They actually ate liver and onions! All the time!
Well not surprisingly I was able to make a memorable impression on someone else as well. We had gone to Illinois for our yearly visit, and the kids and I were in the back seat of my parents' car when I casually happened to mention that I was pregnant. Apparently that caused the wheel of the car to lose control and we ended up being driven into the side of the road. Fortunately it wasn't a ditch. And we didn't have to call 911 for my Father. Or Mother.
Spoiler alert- funny enough, this baby would end up being born on my Dad's birthday. Pretty cool!
Again, life was good. Pretty much. And it wasn't like this was my first pregnancy. I was now at the point that I was pretty confident.
Actually maybe a tad overconfident.
I thought I knew it all, having already survived two pregnancies, and working in the Hospital OB for a year. I was probably invincible, no? So I came up with the idea of having this next baby at home all by myself. What could go wrong?
Of course I never mentioned this to anyone else, because obviously I wouldn't need to. I would just be in total control of it all.
And then the day came. The labor pains began. Interesting timing. The baby had hardly moved that whole week. Strange. And stranger that I ignored it.
It was Sunday afternoon. I was finishing a report for Church that I needed to drop off. . ,
Uh oh, wait a sec, D.Wayne was home. Not part of my plan.
What? Suddenly I could barely move, couldn't talk, not in control of my destiny at all. Was no one paying attention to how it was supposed to go? Things were going downhill fast.
Whoosh, my plan was out the window. Arrangements were made behind my back, and soon I was ushered into the car. On the way to the hospital, of all places!
At least I saved face by dropping off that report en route.
Swedish Medical Center was ready for us. Seriously embarrassing to be surrounded by these nurses, friends I had been working with just the year before.
Yes, I was in good hands on the delivery table for sure, but exposed in ways I hadn't intended. This was not at all the script I had written out in my head.
Then suddenly I was prone on the table, and quickly started projectile vomiting on these very nurses; their faces went from smiles to ashen shock as the baby's heartbeat dropped in half, and kept plummeting. Alarms going off. They immediately directed D.Wayne to leave the room.
Surprisingly though, the Dr. contradicted them, instructing D.Wayne to remain there.
Almost immediately an anesthesiologist bolted through the double doors and ran to slap some kind of gas mask over my face.
"NO!" I gasped.
And that was the last thing I remembered.
Every time I started to regain consciousness, I willed myself not to go back and face all I now desperately feared. I just couldn't. I couldn't go on. Powerless! Facing tragedy was so far beyond my abilities. So far.
Then one time I was coming to again, I heard soft voices from the corner of the room. Nurses discussing the baby's Apgar score. And it was pretty good. How on earth could that be?
Unbelievable! The baby had survived!
This little fighter was a BOY, and what a BOY! He had been in a rare transverse position (sideways), and had the cord wrapped around his neck three times! Prolapsed! And tied in 3 separate knots! It doesn't get any more dangerous than that.
Everything had happened so fast. And it was all wrong! The baby was already too far down the birth canal to have an emergency C section.
"Vaginal delivery is generally impossible and extremely hazardous even with expert intervention. IPV where the Dr. reaches in to grasp a foot and changes the position to facilitate a breech delivery has an extreme risk of death for both baby and mother."
I did not know this until my six week postpartum checkup when the Dr. shared the information. I had to pull off the road on my way home after the appointment to deal with the shock of what we had come so perilously close to.
Had things gone according to my plan of home birthing, there would have been no miracle.
Having been forced to go to the hospital (only because it happened on a Sunday when my husband was home and forced the issue) was an absolute miracle.
Having a highly skilled Dr. who could save both our lives was an absolute miracle.
Having a baby who was a genuine fighter for life was an absolute miracle. How had he endured so much?
Having a husband who was allowed to stay to witness this rare birth, when even I couldn't, was also an absolute miracle.
He was so in awe of this special privilege, and it changed in an instant his attitude about having this baby when he saw the wonder take place in front of his eyes. From that moment on he held a special bond with Jared.
It changed his Father's heart in the blink of any eye. Forever after that, he was never anything but supportive down the road, when I would tell him again (and again and again and again... ) of another baby on the way.
Jared arrived with battle scars, his face had some bruising, his ears for the moment were folded backwards, but no serious internal damages that would force an emergency helicopter trip to Children's Hospital. In fact, he was cleared to come home in a couple days like every other baby without all the drama.
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| Like I said, miracle after miracle, after miracle. |
The fact that this happened the way it did must have been some kind of harbinger of things to come in this little one's life. By the time he was a year old he had survived a few more close calls and hospital encounters. That paradigm remained throughout his life, often on the edge, nevertheless a survivor.
And an important lesson I learned, that even though this was a very rare occurrence, home births are risky. This was so far beyond the scope of any midwife, no matter how gifted. Time would not allow for survival had we not been in the right place at the right time. I would never ever encourage anyone to take that risk.
I am beyond grateful that everything went wrong that day so that everything could go right the rest of his days, and mine.
Jared was born an entertainer as well as a fighter, and from the beginning he could make us laugh when nothing else could.
And our family felt perfect, complete.
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