barbtries a blog: 12/30/95

Sunday, April 03, 2005

12/30/95 – 6:58 a.m.

john, my oldest son
Posted by Hello

Twenty years ago at just this time they finally wheeled my shaven ass into a cold delivery room – I was holding my knees and trying to push.

They said turn on your side and they stuck a needle in my back. Then they put my legs up into stirrups; paralysis set in.

I laid spread-eagled staring fascinated into a round overhead mirror while the nurse leaned into me with both her hands and all her strength – they had numbed me completely from the waste down and I was unable to do any more.

A head came out, and two flailing arms; the first breath went in and came out a lusty yell. I gasped and tears came to my eyes; “My baby!” I said. Then the rest of the long lean body of my first-born son.

The doctor held him by his toes and said, “It’s a boy!”

After the placenta was delivered they put down my legs – for hours, though, I felt them still hanging up in the stirrups. More than once I reached down and jabbed my nerveless thighs because the sensation that they were hanging up in stirrups was so strong.

That was Johnny – 20 years old TODAY. The age I was when he was born….
They laid him next to me; he had round eyes you could almost tell would be dark. He had a worry crease pasted on his forehead: skin that would soon flake off and was a result of his being more than two weeks past due. Almost like he shared my fear that he would NEVER come out!

In a flash it’s twenty years already – an odyssey begun that cold morning and not nearly over yet. A love huge and endless that had waited to hear that first great cry and commenced to rush from that day to this, and beyond.
My boy, my baby boy JOHN

face28
Posted by Hello

i haven't been writing. been reading, some, that's good, and so i was going through my old diary today and i liked this memory...it amazes me beyond description to note this is almost ten years old. tonight, the son says he might be in love again. he is happy, tonight. that's good news to his mother.

- posted by barbara @ 4/03/2005 11:24:00 PM

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