Pop Goes the Mommie
I was a lot bigger than I had been when I was pregnant with Glen. I was all baby, but it was sitting very high up where Glen had been very low; I was hoping it was a sign that it was a girl. I would have been very happy to have a pretty little red-headed girl to match my pretty little red-headed boy. Either way, I didn't have anything new to add to the baby stuff collection. I would just have to make do with what I had. Thank you, Mike.
Mike had started working for Whirlpool in Findley. It was factory work, and factory work was not a very stable job. They would close down for a whole week at Christmas and Thanksgiving. If orders slowed down, they would either cut the hours or lay people off. It was like living on pins and needles, at least it was for me. Not long after Mike starting working there, he had an on-job accident. Somehow he managed to cut off the tips of 3 of his fingers, not a horrible massive wound; it looked like a precision cut. I'm sure it hurt, but for Pete's sake, he carried on like he was dying. He moaned and whimpered like a baby; he said everybody was going to call him Stumpy. I told him if they did, it wouldn't be because of short fingers. He shut up. I asked him how he could fight in a war, get wounded from shrapnel, bear the pain, and get a couple of micro-layers of skin cut off his fingers and act like he was dying. He just walked around sulking after that.
My mom called to tell me that she and Ronnie wanted to come up for Thanksgiving. I said, sure, I should have the new baby at home by then and feel well enough to have company. I told my sister-in-law that they were coming up, and she said they could stay at her house, which was fine by me. All I had in my extra bedrooms was baby furniture, no adult beds, so that was a big relief.
Speaking of phone calls, all of my former phone company friends will get a kick out of this. Our phone service was an 8 party line. That means that 8 different homes were on the same phone line. You could pick the receiver up to make a call, and Bobbie Sue from Eudora might be gossiping when Mary Anne from Ottawa. There was no privacy. If you were smart, you were very careful about what you said on the phone. I'm sure that some of the old busy-bodies in town picked up their phone all day long to eavesdrop on everyone. That's the kind of town that it was; everyone knew everything about everybody. I hated it.
The only redeeming excitement was the availability of bingo. Bingo was everywhere, and the Catholic Churches were the Bingo Masters. Everyone had bingo, the VFW, the Elks, the Moose, all denominations of churches (there were no Baptist churches locally), but the Catholic Church in Lima was primo. Bigger payouts, more games per night, and more nights per week. It was very cheap to play. I could play for $5.00, and my wins helped to support us. I was very lucky. One night I was looking over the cards at one of the bingo places in town. I was the new girl in town. You have to understand that it was an old established place, people didn't move to or from there. So I was the freak show, I was picking out my cards, and a woman asked me how I felt. I looked at her like she had just landed from Mars. Fine, I was fine. Then another woman asked me how I was feeling. What was going on? I was pregnant, a condition that was obviously passed on through the local drinking water; you rarely saw a woman that wasn't pregnant. I went back to my seat and told my mother-in-law what had happened. She said that might have been her fault, that she had mentioned to a few people that I had hemophilia. What? What? I asked her why she would tell anyone that, and she said because I bled easily and freely and worried about myself. Dummy! I told her that women don't and can't have hemophilia, that they only carry the gene, and males are the only ones that can have the disease. I told her to make sure that she told that to all of her friends. I had anemia, big whoop.
By the time Thanksgiving week rolled around, I was 2 weeks overdue and miserable. I was exhausted and felt like I was going to pop. My mom and Ronnie showed up on Wednesday afternoon before Thanksgiving day. We went to bingo that night, something new to them. When we got back to Larry's house, Mike had left Glen with him and gone out drinking. Nothing new. I had them take me home so I could go to bed. We would have Thanksgiving dinner at Chris and Larry's house. Everything went fine, the two mothers-in-law remained civil, and Chris's crazy family was there. They were all loud and boisterous. Even in my very pregnant condition, her father couldn't keep from touching me. Ewww. I went home early with Glen, Ronnie, and Larry to drink with Mike, and my mom stayed home with Chris. Yes, even on Thanksgiving night, you could go out and booze it up. Friday, we went back to Chris's house for leftovers and cards. I just wanted to go home and sleep. In fact, I went and laid down on Chri's bed and was out of it until it was time to go home.
Saturday morning, when I woke up, I felt awful. I didn't have normal labor before; my water had broken. I wasn't sure if I was in labor or not, but I knew in about an hour or so. I went to the country doctor's office, and he confirmed it. Everyone wanted to come over and be with me, and I said no. I just had them take Glen and his clothes to Chris's house. I didn't want a big production, and I wasn't very social; the back labor was killing me. At 5 pm, I left for the hospital. I wasn't terrified this time. I was treated like a queen; it was great. It was a Catholic hospital, and when I told one of the nurses how nice everyone was, she said that moms were their most important patients. That was quite the opposite of the naval hospital. They didn't make you suffer in pain. When you were far enough along in your labor, they knocked you out with gas. It was weird. I thought that it must be what LSD felt like. Voices were just vibrating in big waves of billowing sound until finally, you were out. When I came to, I had another little boy, well, a big boy 2 pounds heavier than Glen. His head was all distorted from the use of forceps, and his little face was all scratched up. He looked like he had been in a fight. I didn't feel very well; I just wanted to sleep. When I woke up, I was in my room, and a nurse pushed on my stomach. I thought I was going to die, and I almost did. Mike was gone; the nurse was scaring me. She said she had to go get a doctor. The next thing I knew, they were wheeling me into an operating room. I had an aneurysm and was bleeding uncontrollably. The next thing I knew, the gas mask was over my face again. I woke up but couldn't open my eyes or move or speak while working on me. I heard them talking about me, tried to speak, answer them but couldn't, my brain was awake, but my body was still asleep. Peculiar feeling. That must be what it feels like when you are dying.
The hospital had been unable to reach Mike; he couldn't be found. They reached Chris, and my mom gave them permission to operate and give me blood. When my body finally woke up to match my brain, and I was back in my room, my mom and brother were there. Mike still couldn't be found, and Larry was out looking for him with blood in his eyes. They explained that I should have had a cesarean section, that Jeff was a huge baby for me to bare and he almost killed me. I almost bled to death after he was born. Wow, no wonder I felt like refried crap. I had tubes everywhere I looked; I had bandages and packing "down there" that felt like an invasion of cotton creatures. I was throbbing all over. My mom and Ronnie had to leave the next day to go back to DC; well, actually, they would be leaving in just a few hours. They would make sure that Chris had everything she needed to take care of Glen. I told them not to let Mike take him home. They understood. And then I went to sleep. A wonderful demurral induced sleep, it was wonderful, I felt like Alice falling, and falling and falling.
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