Friday, May 9, 2008

Happy Birthday Jennifer!!

Thirty three years ago on Saturday May 10, my daughter Jennifer Anne was born. I can't believe I have a kid who is SO OLD!!!

She was born by c-section after a long day of labor and I didn't see her until the next day because I was out cold during the operation. Back in those days if the baby had any hair at all the nurses would comb it into a little curl at the top of her head. I thought that she came that way.
It's so different now with pregnancies, we could eat whatever we wanted, take an aspirin if we had a headache, and drinking alcohol while pregnant was not considered child abuse the way it is nowadays. There were no ultrasounds so you had no idea what your baby looked like until it was born, and you certainly couldn't plan ahead for a girl or boy. You were just glad that whatever it was came out healthy and with all their body parts.
And back then 'we' weren't pregnant, 'I' was pregnant. Actually, the correct term was 'expecting'.
New moms got to stay at the hospital a few days, five if you had a c-section. None of this going home ten minutes after the baby is born. And no 'rooming in'-all the babies were whisked away to the nice sterile nursery, and were only brought out at feeding time, all nice and clean and bundled up for you. And when it was time to go home, the nurses wheeled you out to the car, helped you get in, and then just handed the baby to you. You drove home with that baby in your arms. No car seats, no facing backwards, we didn't even have seatbelts in our car, much less a carseat. The only carseats that they had back then were the ones that hung on the back of the front seat with the little steering wheel on them. Your baby had to be big enough to sit up to use one of those.
Bottle feeding was perfectly acceptable, too, no mommy wars about how what a bad mom you are for not breast feeding, and not every baby had a pacifier stuffed in their mouths all the time either, we just let them cry. I can't remember if pacifiers were frowned upon or what, but you hardly ever saw a baby with one, just a bottle. Sometimes there was even juice in that bottle.
Real food was started much earlier then, too, I think around 6 weeks you started with some cereal, and then added something new each week.
And you know what? Even though we risked our babies lives from the moment we drove home with them in our arms in the car, they survived and grew up!
So, even though I did everything wrong, you turned out okay, Jennifer! Happy Birthday!

1 comment:

Jim and Heather on Meerkat said...

I remember that day really well. Probably better than you as I wasn't all drugged up. Can't believe she is so "old"!!