A Friend's Baby Shower

(From 2009)

My dear friend is having a baby, and I attended her shower today. It has been almost a couple of decades since my boys were babies and I was in her shoes. This event really brought back some memories and an odd bittersweet awareness of just how quickly life moves along and beautiful babies have their experiences and grow into young adults. Watching my friend open her gifts, the tiny socks, the darling bibs, the bottles, the new-fangled gadgets to help new parents, all of that with the excitement of being full of life, a fully living being contained within oneself. The decision prevails, to find out the gender or not find out, when you will know anyway for the rest of your life. What an experience. So long ago, yet just yesterday. Then the ensuing 20 (almost 21!) of personality development, life experiences, building character, the joys, the tears, the challenges, the decisions, the moves, the loves, the losses, the support, the ignorance, the "winging it" (they do not come with instruction manuals), lessons learned with the first that get overlooked with the last. As the firsts are all diligently recorded (at least in the first child's baby book...), the series of "lasts" slip by unrecognized (the last bedtime story read, the last bath given, the last jar of baby food, the last nursing session, the last drive to a friend's house, the last enormous food bill, and on and on) and then before I know it they are off on their journeys.

It's all humorous and amazing. And sad, at least in the regard of realizing that those early baby years, as challenging as they can be, are fleeting. Now I get to watch these children/young men move forth in their lives, the foundations of their lives in place to be molded and folded as they experience life.

As my dear friend releases her life as "childless", entering motherhood with all of this ahead of her, I release my "child-filled" life, entering this next stage.

May 19, 2011 Happy Birthday, Alan!

Twenty-three years ago, in 1988, was an exciting time in my life.  I was 20 years old, newly married, and about to give birth to my first baby.  I love this story because it is all about synchronicity and Life...

Sometime in March, 1988 I was given terbutaline to stop early labor in my pregnancy.  My husband at the time, Jeff, and I had gone to Mexico for our delayed honeymoon in December and I'd contracted a salmonella infection when I was 4 1/2 mos. pregnant.  I am thinking this is what may have caused the early contractions a couple months later. Who knows?  Anyhow, I took terbutaline for 4 weeks while the baby continued to grow and develop and I was allowed to discontinue the medication three weeks before my due date of May 19.

The day I discontinued the medication, my dad, who lived nearby at the time, called to tell me he was going on a three week work trip, he was a pilot, and told me that he didn't want me to have the baby until he came home.  I told him that of course I'd wait to have the baby until he returned (of course I was thinking that the sooner I have the baby the better!) 

The days and weeks went by, and I celebrated my first Mother's Day that year, May 15, still pregnant.  I was at a Mother's Day classical concert in which my mother was playing and that baby danced and danced inside my belly.   The next few days I spent nesting like crazy, washing baby clothes, cleaning the house, and whatever else I could do with all of that extra energy.  May 18 was especially 'nestful'.  We went out to eat for a huge dinner meal and came home and crawled into bed.

Spring 1988 - Waiting for Alan, Golden, CO

Literally, for me, it was crawling into bed.  Because of the low height of the stair ceiling in the apartment in which we were living, we weren't able to use our double box spring and the bed mattress was on the floor.  At 9 months pregnant, I had to lower myself carefully using the dresser across the room to the floor, and crawl/roll into bed.  Jeff was already snoozing, and I started to drift off...

Suddenly the phone rang.  The phone was downstairs.  I rolled out of bed, crawled across the floor, pulled myself up the dresser, and ran my big pregnant body down the stairs.   I answered the phone, and it was my dad was on the other end.  He told me that he was back in town and that I could go ahead and have the baby.  I'd totally forgotten my promise to him.  But, at that moment, literally, my water broke.  My dad was telling me all about his trip while I was trying to figure a way to let him know that I needed to check on this new development.  Finally I told him that my water broke and I needed to call the hospital. 

I woke Jeff up and told him we needed to go to the hospital, so we went, and with every bump on that ride I sat in a new pool of water.   The next morning, 8:24am, May 19, Alan was born. 

"Uncle Dave" (Grandpa) holding Alan a few weeks after he was born. 

One of my favorite pictures from that time is one of my dad holding Alan. It was worth the wait!

The new family, 23 years ago

Alan graduating from WSU, 2010

Alan exploring his new digs in Cambridge, MA, 2010

In the twenty-three years since that day have been amazing.  I am honored to be his young man's mother.  I am proud of what he has accomplished but even prouder of the kind, generous, loving, thoughtful and compassionate human being he is and has always been.   Thank you Alan for beginning my journey through motherhood!  May your Birthdays be Happier and Happier!     Love, Mom

 

 

 

Alan

Fall, 1988, Alan - Golden, CO