THE BEST GIFT ... MY DAUGHTER

Since it is Daughters Week, it seems very appropriate today for me to write about the day my daughter was born.  It happens to be the best day in my life. 



First of all, my pregnancy was a good one.  I worked all but two weeks before she was born so I was very active.  I had only two incidences of nausea.  One while taking report on the unit I worked and the other at her grandmothers house when I smelled egg nog at Christmas.  I didn't know I was pregnant.  We had been trying for over a year and I was beginning to think it would never happen. But when it happened, I spent many nights as I went to sleep singing to her , reading  to her, just hoping she would hear. Joe thougth I was crazy. 

    The clothes were a hoot.  Very Very comfortable.  We tried to hide the bubble, unlike today.

    Where we lived was mostly made up of students at UNC or Chapel Hill.  Joe was a student working in the Pathology department at the UNC Hospital.  We had many social times.  Playing volley ball and hide and seek were two of the games.  It was very depressing to have to sit and watch.  My friend Jane and I were pregnant at the same time and both of us were very jealous of those having such a good time. Jane's Tommy was born near the same time as Leah.

     Several days before I went into labor, her father and I walked the two mile trek to our friends house up the Old Chapel Hill Road.  And then we walked back.  I was so tired.  The tale was if you walked you would go into labor.  Well, that didn't work, so my husband got out the castor oil.  That I took by the ton.  It didn't work either.  I should have known.  She would do things in her own time and in her own way. 

North Carolina Memorial Hospital in the Sixties

Her grandmother was coming after she was born to help.  Instead she had arrived a week before I went into labor.  Great planning.  She would ask me every few minutes... How do you feel?  Any pains?  She was very excited.  My husband was no better.... They could not wait for this little baby.  Of course we did not know if I was to have a daughter or son.  In those days, we didn't have a way to know ... we just were surprised.  Hence, lots of yellow and green at showers.
     The time finally came on Sunday, August 18, 1963.  Yes her birthday is on the 20th, Tuesday.  But, on Saturday night I was having pains and went to the Hospital.  I was sent home.  The next day I went back again and was admitted.  My memory of labor is very vague.  They say you do not remember the pain.  Well that and the fact that I was given Scolpolamine and Demerol which left me with no memory....
I know that when I would moan and yell, Joe would put a cold cloth on my forehead.  Made me mad as a wet hen. I was in labor for two days. Today I would have had a section; progress is good!    Finally, at 11:55 PM on the 20th she arrived. 


A Nursery of the Sixties

      I remember nothing until the next morning.  I woke up.  No baby bubble. I screamed!  Nurses came a running.  My baby was in the nursery, I was told..  Then they said, "We will be right back with her!"  They took forever.  So I found out I had a little girl.  Joe and his mom had gone home to rest.  I called him and what I got was a sleepy man who said, we are sleeping call back.  Good for them.  The nurses didn't come back, didn't come back, didn't come back.  I rang the bell over and over again.  You have no idea the thoughts that were going through my head.  She didn't survive, she was deformed.... and on and on....   But, finally, the nurse comes pushing a bassinet.  She took her out and there was the most beautiful little girl I have ever seen.  She was the usual pink, and when she looked at me and curled her little hand around my little finger I felt so overwhelmed.... I was gone the minute I saw her.  I loved her when I carried her.  I have loved her more every day of her life.  I love her now more than ever.  She is wonderful!!

In those days we stayed in the hospital for five days.  I had a wonderful corner room with windows on two sides.  The UNC hospital was close enough to hear the bells of the Bell Tower sing.  I received such pretty and wonderful things.  I was asked what I wanted to eat.  My husband sent me TWO dozen red roses in a blown glass vase. A dozen roses were a big deal in those days much less two dozen.   I have protected the vase and gave that blue and white vase to Leah just a few years ago.   I was pampered.  Those five days of being Queen and having time with my Princess was wonderful.  She was with me as much as they would let me have her.  Feeding her, burping her, changing her.... just she and I.together. Back in the day, very few people had access to the new baby.  Visitors, including Dad, went to the nursery window. 

     One incident of great importance was Leah's naming.  I had filled out the Birth Certificate with her name and all the other details. Joe and I had agreed that she would be Lea Frances  Moore.  I really liked the little name, Lea... my name was so long and complicated.  I liked naming her for both her Grandmother and my Aunt Frances.  As fate would have it, when the clerk came into the room to have it validated, her grandmother was there.  I was sound asleep.  She changed the name to Frances Leah Moore.  When I woke up, she informed me that they had made this TERRIBLE mistake.  I just couldn't tell her that it was no mistake.  Joe was not about to tackle that!  Fortunately, Leah loves her name.  She liked the fact that we called her Leah and not Frances.  All is Good.

     I couldn't wait to get her home, dress her in her frillies, and rock her in our chair. We had made a bassinet for her....it lasted only a few days. 

It was borrowed from one of the girls where we lived but I did the addition of frillies..   I forgot I would have to share her with everyone else when I got home.  My husband, my mother-in-law, and many friends from where we lived.  They were trying to make me so happy.  Joe and his mom had prepared their favorite dish, it takes two days to make.  It is called South Carolina Hash.  Mostly just onions, potatoes and meat.  It was really hard to get down.  They thought I loved it, but it took all the fortitude I had to get it down.  In the day, diapers were very soft cotton.  They were washed in our washing machine, thank goodness we had one. We did not have a dryer.  Clothes had to be taken to the clothesline at the back.  Getting out, down the back stairs, walking down the hill and putting them on the line, out to dry, was a chore.  I was still quite sore.  But that chore was not one that any other adult in the household was willing to do.  I had to hang them dodging the droppings from the pine trees.  They are beautiful but the resin can be hard to get out of diapers.



I was scheduled to be off work for six weeks.  But, alas, since Leah was late by two weeks, that meant that I had to go back  in a month.  With Joe in school, there was not options.  I cried for weeks when I had to leave her with Joe or the babysitter next door.  In three months, it was too much, so I quit my job at the VA hospital and stayed home for six months..  We made it somehow.  It was the best time.  I loved being home with her.  I went back to work at Duke as there was a job freeze at the VA.  I worked on OB until it was time for us to move to Fayetteville, NC.

I Love You, My Daughter.....