This Little Life Of Mine - Chapter 45 - Frankly, My Dear Thomas M Parsons

45. Frankly, My Dear

NBC television was broadcasting the famous film for the very first time on November 8 and 9 in 1976. Two blockbuster nights. The film was thirty-seven years old at the time, and the audience was expected to be very large for the showings. Linda and I planned to be among the number viewing the melodrama of Scarlet O’Hara those two nights.

But a little life that had been forming inside Linda for the past nine months had other plans.

We arrived at St. Mary’s Hospital Monday afternoon, November 8. The water had broken and the doctor said it was time to get to the place where all births must occur. It was the baby’s due date, so we expected we would have a baby before the night was finished. Right!

The labor was long and hard. It took a lot out of me. Linda got a little tired, too.

The nurse said it was going to be awhile, so we turned the TV on in Linda’s room to settle in to watch the film. But the contractions were regular and painful, and Linda found it beneficial to walk the hallway when the pains were most intense. Needless to say, we saw very little of Scarlet that night.

The contractions continued, but they were not increasing in frequency like the nurse thought they should. She consulted with the doctor and began an IV drip that was supposed to speed up the process.

It didn’t.

She was partially dilated, but not enough for the baby to pass through. The nurse asked me if I wanted to see the top of the head of my child, and I said, “Sure!” I figured she was going to use some fancy and expensive piece of equipment to allow me a view of whoever it was that was coming all too slowly. Instead she led me to Linda’s bed with nothing but a flashlight. Shining the light into the birth canal, I could see a crop of dark hair, the crown of our baby’s head. Okay, I thought. It’s time to see what the rest of you looks like.

Monday turned to Tuesday. I watched the dark sky turn grey then grey-blue then pink and yellow and red and finally full blue. Linda continued to have contractions, but no baby arrived.

Now we had a different nurse because the shift had changed. The doctor was consulted several times during the morning, but Linda, who was growing quite exhausted, still lay on the bed and was only allowed to have some ice from time to time.

Lunch time came. We had been in that hospital room for twenty hours. I had to get out. The nurse said when things started happening they would happen fast, but she thought if I left for an hour or so I wouldn’t miss anything. I told my wife I would be right back, that I just needed to get some air, and some food. She feebly nodded agreement. I could have food. She could not. The nurses would not give her anything to eat until the baby was born.

Where did I go on my brief respite from the smells and sounds of the hospital? Where else? To McDonald’s. A Big Mac, fries and a Coke were what I needed and what I got. After, I hurried back to the hospital to find that no progress had been made since I left. I felt better, though.

Throughout the afternoon the contractions continued but Linda was growing weaker and so were the contractions. I figured that was not good. The nurse obviously agreed, although we did not discuss it. She consulted with the doctor, but he still wanted to wait. We had talked about having a natural childbirth, and he wanted to honor that. So far, Linda had not had any medication except the IV which was supposed to induce labor and help speed it along.

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In the evening, when the November grey had turned to darkness, and the nurse from the night before was back on duty (“You still here?” she said), the doctor decided it was time to do something. The baby, he said, was turned the wrong way making it difficult for the head to pass through the birth canal. He decided the best approach would be to use forceps to turn the baby in order to facilitate passage through the canal.

That would necessitate the use of anaesthesia and would mean that Linda would be unconscious at the birth of the baby. Not exactly a natural childbirth. I looked at my exhausted wife and I could see she was thinking Go for it. So we consented. An anaesthesiologist was brought in. Our doctor said to him, “Hit it, Ed!” and Linda was rendered unconscious for about ten minutes. She missed the great event. But I didn’t. I saw it all.

Skillfully the doctor inserted the forceps into the birth canal and slowly rotated them as he turned the baby to the proper position. Once he did that, birth came swiftly and beautifully. Out rushed a little girl fully formed and intact. There was a red spot on her forehead where one tong of the forceps had pressed into her skin, but she was otherwise perfect. The mark, the doctor assured me, would go away in a few days.

The doctor put two clamps on the cord that still connected the baby to Linda’s body, leaving a space about an inch wide between them. Then he offered me a pair of scissors. “Would you like to do the honors?” he said. I took the scissors and opened their blades and placed them on the cord between the clamps. I pushed the two handles together and the cord snapped in two. Our baby was now free from her mother’s body, an independent life, body and person. Like the Psalmist said, I could only think I am beautifully and wonderfully made. God had answered the prayers of an elderly saint in LaSalle, Illinois. I was also certain there was not a diaper in the basement of the parsonage that had anything to do with our blessing that evening.

Linda was brought out of the anaesthesia at this point, and the little girl was laid on her stomach. Both Linda and the baby seemed glad that the baby was on her stomach, no longer in it. The name we had agreed on was instantly assigned to the new life. Miranda Kathleen Parsons. Mandy.

Since the birth had taken place in what was essentially an operating room, Linda and the baby had to be transported back to Linda’s room. Linda rode on the bed. I was asked if I wanted to carry the baby to the room. I did. As I walked down the hallway, two little eyes that until now had seen nothing but darkness stared into my face. Intellectually I assume a new-born baby doesn’t have the ability yet to think deep thoughts. But I like to think Mandy was looking into my eyes and saying, “Are you my Daddy?”

That night, Tuesday, November 9, 1976, was the second night of the NBC showing of one of the most famous films ever made. We missed it. And, frankly, my dear, I don’t give a...

We had our baby, and the years of hoping for a child and not having one were gone with the wind.

The pictures show Mandy at one day old, in St. Mary's Hospital in LaSalle, Illinois. The hospital was scheduled to be closed; Mandy was one of the last babies born at the facility. The picture of Linda pregnant with Mandy was taken at the zoo in Peoria, Illinois in the summer of 1976.