Birth # 4 - Here Comes the Baby

“Jack, I saw a mouse run across the floor. Help!” I screamed.
“You’re imagining it.” Jack replied. He agreed I was right after he opened the play room closet and found a mouse nest in my yarn box.
“Jack, I think I have Poison Oak! Look at my finger. You know Allen’s got it!” I point my finger at Jack and whine. We were vacationing at Bass Lake with the Moscovitz and Deutsch families and Allen, one of the kids came down with Poison Oak.
“You’re imagining it. It’s Psychosomatic. You think you have it because Allen has it.” Jack admonished. Jack agreed I had Poison Oak when my whole body broke out in a rash.
“Jack, I think I’m pregnant. I just vomited.” because my period was so irregular the only way I ever knew I was pregnant was when I woke up one morning and vomited.
“You’re imagining it. You can’t be pregnant! It’s Psychosomatitic. You just think you’re pregnant because Roz is pregnant.” Jack said. He agreed I was pregnant when my body began to show a baby growing. This was the year that Jack was taking a course in Clinical Psychology and he practiced what he learned.
That year, 1957, it seemed all our friends were having babies. Dolores, Shirley and Beverly were pregnant. Bev was due two weeks before me, Dolores and Shirley a month later. We lived in the San Fernando Valley and we all had children attending the Tarzana Co-op Nursery School and the mothers, saw each other almost every day because of carpools, babysitting and school work days. We kept track of our pregnancies development and how we each felt.
We were expecting a girl. We had moved out of our bedroom and set it up as a dormitory for 4 girls. We were going to use two sets of bunk beds to make the most of a small room. This fourth, unplanned for child was really making things different but we weren’t planning on moving from the little house we loved. Where would we find an orange grove and a walnut grove on the same parcel of land? We had enclosed the patio to make a play room. Where would we be able to do that? No we had to figure out how to stay where we were.
“Jack, I just felt a contraction. We better get going. Midge came so fast that I’m afraid this one’s not going to wait for us to get to the hospital. Call Dolores.”
It was 6:00am. I called our neighbor, Mary, to come in and watch the girls until Dolores got to our house. She would help them get to school. Jack called my mother to come and take care of the children when they got home from school. We took off for the hospital. There were no freeways then and we had to get to the hospital in Los Angeles. It took an hour to get there and made us very nervous.
“Any minute! Call the doctor to come in right now!” the nurse said. It was 7:00am and we were in the hospital. I was in the delivery room. I had been examined and prepped and now was sitting up on the table.
The doctor came in and handed me his gown. “Can you tie this on? How are you feeling?” he asked. “No time for anesthesia. You OK with that?”
“This baby’s coming. I feel it! I’m fine” I answered. Things were going so fast, no one asked about my glasses and I could watch the whole delivery process. There was a very bright light shining down on me and the light fixture was like a mirror and no cloth hanging in front of my belly. Only the doctor, a nurse and I were there. It was wonderful.
I watched as the baby was taken and handed to the nurse. “Ah, Ha, a boy” the nurse said as she held him upside down and I got a clear look at a penis. He started crying and all was well but all our plans were shot. I did get the boy I always wanted though!
I was cleaned up and in my room by 8:00am. I was feeling very spunky and said to Jack, “Let’s call Dolores to thank her for taking care of the kids and tell her it was false labor pains and I’m coming home. What do you think?”
“Sounds like fun.” Jack said and he called the Deutsch’s number and handed the phone to me.
“Hi Dolores, sorry that we woke you so early. Yeah, it was false labor. It’s just like Bev. Have you heard if she’s given birth yet? I asked. “No, Bev hasn’t delivered yet.” I told Jack. “Well I’m sorry we’ll have to call you again for this one, Dolores. Have you talked with my mother? Did she get to the house? We’re coming home now.”
We hung up and laughed at our big joke but now we really had to think about what it meant to have a boy child.