Tuesday, February 20, 2007

The Birthday Boy .. uh..sorry.. I mean Man

Happy Birthday Son


On this day 36 years ago, I gave birth to our son "J". His birth was such a proud moment for us. Things were different back then as there were no pre-birth parenting classes to attend, and ... fathers were not permitted to be with their wife during most of the labor or in the operating room. While pregnant, if you couldn't sleep you were given Valium; if you had a headache you were told to take whatever pain reliever med you had available. There were also no ultrasounds during the pregnancy to find out the sex of the baby, therefore, yellow became the color scheme for our nursery and I'm sure many other parents during that period. Some may be surprised to learn that in the 1960's and 1970's mothers in labor were given anesthesia during childbirth. Yes, I was knocked totally out! Mothers were not given an option then; the doctor made all the decisions.

On the morning of our son's birth, my hubby was in the waiting room with other expectant fathers. There was a TV monitor mounted near the ceiling in the waiting room. After nervously pacing and waiting all through the night, he said all of a sudden he heard the words "Mr. B you have a son"! He told me he looked up at the television monitor and saw a nurse holding our son up to the screen so that he could see him. Afterward, he said other fathers in the waiting room gathered around to congratulate him. I believe my husband saw our son before I did through the TV monitor since I was still knocked out from anesthesia.

Many years have now passed and today our son is a career military man, happily married to his high school sweetheart and has two children. They live in another state and we try to see them as much as possible, however, we miss them terribly. We're so very proud of him as a Christian husband, father, son, and leader in his particular branch of military.

2 comments:

1 said...

What a wonderful anecdote ;)

Tell him Happy Birthday,
Heather

Overwhelmed! said...

Happy Belated Birthday to your son. I loved hearing about what delivery was like back then!