Carrying on in the tradition of my mother – I will tell you what I was doing 31 years ago today. As it happens, I was doing the best thing I ever did: Bringing the most amazing person into the world.
I had been having labor pains all day long the day before, but was only 31 weeks along, so I assumed they were false labor – and everywhere I went, I said as much to whoever I ran into. ‘Hey, I think I’m in labor! Ha ha. I’m sure it’s false labor.’
If you traced my path that evening, it would look like one of those Family Circus cartoons.
I stopped by Mom’s house for an hour or two to watch ‘The Wizard’. (Not be confused with the ‘Oz’ wizard. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wizard_(TV_series). Told Mom and Jennifer that I was having pains, but that it probably wasn’t really labor.
I visited Debbie Born to let her know that I was almost certainly not in labor. But maybe she ought to be on standby, just in case.
I went to Kroger to buy toilet paper. I told the cashier, (whose name was Emma - weird, what you remember, isn’t it?), “I’m having false labor.” She shoved my bag and my change at me and said, “Get out! You’re not having a baby here!” We both had a laugh.
I went home to my little efficiency apartment on Dayton Street and tried to figure out how to make the pains stop. False labor or not, it still hurt. I’d heard if you laid down on one side or the other – can’t remember which – that it would help, so I tried that. It didn’t help.
I didn’t have a phone, so I drove to the King Kwik down the street and used the payphone to call the ER at Fort Hamilton Hospital. I described the pains and told the nurse that I was sure it was false labor. She said the only way to tell for sure would be to come to the hospital and get an exam. I didn’t want to go to the hospital because I was certain that the pains would stop as soon as I got there and then I’d end up spending the night at the hospital for no reason. But I went anyway.
When I got to the hospital, I sat in the parking lot and had a frank discussion with my uterus. “Look. We’re at the hospital. You can stop with the pain now. We both know this isn’t really labor. We are a couple of months away from that. I really don’t want to go in here and get poked and prodded and end up going home in the morning feeling stupid.” My uterus didn’t provide any satisfactory cessation of pain, but I drove back home anyway.
Back at my apartment, I got into bed and curled up. The pains got worse, and closer together. It was about 2am. I was all alone, with no phone, and I realized that this was really happening. If I didn’t get up and get to the hospital soon, I wasn’t going to be able to.
So – back to Fort Hamilton. This time I went in, which turned out to be a good thing since I was pretty clearly in labor. The real kind.
Back then, Fort Hamilton didn’t have much in the way of facilities for caring for preemies, so their first priority was to get me to University Hospital in Cincinnati, tout de suite. The nurse who was caring for me informed me – with great delight – that we’d be taking the helicopter to UC. No thank you with that helicopter crap. Uh huh. No way. The nurse was all ‘yes way!’ because she was going to get to go along and it was evidently the most fun thing she could think of doing. It wasn’t really clear that I even had a choice – until the thunderstorm rolled in.
It was a WHOPPER of a thunderstorm, thanks to which I rode to UC Hospital in an ambulance, not a helicopter.
Long story short – and it is a much longer story involving, among other things, the docs at UC unsuccessfully trying to stop my labor by standing me on my head (ok, not literally – but they tilted my bed so that my head was toward the floor and my feet were pointing at the ceiling and giving me a drug that made my heart beat so fast I thought it was going to escape out my throat) – Elijah Willis was born at 3:50pm the next day.
He came flying out like a football so suddenly that the doctor almost dropped him. He weighed 3lbs. 9oz. His body from his neck to his bottom was the exact length of my hand. His foot was the length of the first two knuckles of my index fingers. He was beautiful and healthy and tiny.
nd nothing was ever the same for me.
When folks tell you what it’s like to be a parent, they don’t ever tell you how completely helpless and vulnerable you are going to be to this deep and overwhelming love you feel for this little person. If they are hurt, or sick, or heartbroken, it breaks your heart too. If some little shit makes fun of their Power Ranger socks and they come home from school crying, you will find yourself wanting to kill a fourth grader. And 31 years into this whole parenthood thing – I don’t see this vulnerability waning.
But it’s worth it. Because look at this wonderful person I raised! He’s out there in the world being a deeply good person, and chasing his dreams and building his own life and future.
I love you Elijah Willis. I am proud of you every day, and I wish all the success and happiness in the world for you.