Dad's Book - 2008

​DARRYL'S BOOK INSTALLMENT: 17 January 2008:
 
            In the course of trying to remember things in our past, I
was thinking about the birth of you kids. Time has a way of eroding feelings
and emotion, and age has a way of deleting details, so a lot of my
recollections are covered with a haze of distance.
 
                        Carol's birth, to me, passed rather quickly, as
I have recounted previously, and as I was in Korea when David was born, my
only recollection there is of waiting for the letter to tell me if it was to
be a son or another daughter. And later, Darryl's birth was so normal with
nothing dramatic to make the day stand out, that I just remember we were
pleased that the numbers (boys and girls) were even, and we had the perfect
family.
 
                        Valerie gave me several dramatic pictures to
recall the event. First of all, I was out of the Army for only three weeks,
and paying hospital bills and doctors was a new experience which I faced
with some trepidation. Your mother had heard of something called "twilight
sleep" from other Army wives which was supposed to provide painless labor
and delivery. By calling doctors in town, she found one whose nurse said "Of
course, Dr. Evans uses the latest technology." So, she became a patient of
Dr. O.B. Evans, an obstetrician who practiced at a clinic on Bank Street.
 
                        When we woke on the 23rd of January, it was
cold, snowing, and frozen over, but your mother had an O.B. appointment with
Dr. Evans at 9:00 a.m. which we had to attend. After the appointment, when
the doctor said "You're doing great, see you next week," we stopped at the
grocery store to pick up some things.  I stayed in the car with Carol and
David while your Mother went inside.
 
            The grocery store was located where Lucky's is now, next to
the Karate studio. In a few minutes I saw your mother come out and start
running across the parking lot, slipping and stumbling on the ice as she
tried to pick up something which was blowing across the ground. I panicked
at the sight, and was really angry when she told me it was just a dollar
bill that had blown out of her hand as she tried to tuck it into her purse
on the way out of the store.
 
            We made it home and I got to work about Noon.  At
two-o-clock I got a call from your mother and she said "It's time." So we
made quick arrangements and hurried to the clinic. She was taken into the
delivery room, and a nurse came to tell me that it would be quite a while,
so I went across Bank Street to a coffee shop where I talked to Thad Terry
for about 30 minutes.
 
            When I returned to the clinic, where all the expectant
fathers were seated in the hallway, a nurse came out with a bloody bundle
that was apparently a baby, and she said "It's a girl," as she handed me the
bundle. One guy, with bad teeth and tobacco juice dripping down the side of
his mouth, leaned over her and remarked that she didn't have much hair.
 
            I didn't see your mother for a couple of hours, and it was
then that I discovered she didn't get the "twilight sleep." She had been
given a spinal block shot, and later the nurses moved her too soon after the
shot, and she suffered recurring back problems from that day. It seems the
doctor was never asked about the procedure and consequently had no idea that
your mother did not want a spinal shot.
 
            As it turned out, that cold, snowy wintry day became a warm
and cuddly one, and after a few weeks, Valerie had enough hair that she even
looked like a girl.   --Love, Dad