A letter to my daughter on her 40th, September 16, 2018
Happy birthday my beautiful daughter. Let me tell you about my earliest memories of you...
Your father and I were living in a handyman’s special in Thurman, NY with 30 sled dogs. While I felt something was different and that I might be pregnant, I thought how unbelievably coincidental it would be that, like 4 co-workers at my little school in Hudson Falls, I too was pregnant. We did think there was something magical about that water. While I wasn’t trying to get pregnant, we weren’t taking any precautions either so nature took her course.
I remember literally doing a happy dance in our beat-up old kitchen, complete with wood stove as our only heat source, being completely joyful to be pregnant with my first child. I was 26. I knew that this hippie lifestyle would have to change and that I would have to “grow up,” move to a proper house closer to civilization and get a Volvo 😉, the safest car being touted at the time.
We moved to a picturesque little lake with a bazillion stairs going down to it. It was warm and cozy with a great front porch. I painted a rainbow over your head and bought an antique nursing crib that was intended to be put near the mother’s bed with deep in my womb were your first movements. Later there would be elbows, knees and feet making an imprint under my swollen belly. I would push them back in only to have a limb poke through on the other side. I loved knowing you were in there for real. I didn’t know your gender. Ultrasounds were for problematic pregnancies back then. I also didn’t know your due date. I happily consumed chocolate milkshakes throughout my pregnancy and put on 28 lbs. August’s heat was brutal and I felt huge.
I had to decide what kind of delivery I wanted. Would it be a home birth with a midwife? Would I sit in a tub or squat letting gravity do some of the work?? Would I want your father to be at my side during labor and your birth??? Would I deliver without an epidural or episiotomy???? Would I breast feed????? Would I join the la leche league and nurse you til the age of 5?????? Where would I sign up for the Lamaze classes???????
I had 2 friends that gave me 2 models to consider. My friend Jane would deliver entirely drug and surgery-free, squatting, in a hospital birthing room (new concept at the time). Her very strong will overrode her Dr’s better judgement. Her baby was in distress, she refused a Caesarian and her baby was still-born. She was a redhead and she named her Hannah. She buried her newborn on her property and started a support group for mothers who lost babies. It was profoundly sad and the first and only infant death in our small circle of pregnant friends. It scared us all about a possibility of things not going well. For me, it clarified what I needed to do.
Another friend chose a midwife and home birth. She was our neighbor in the mountains and because of the extreme conditions where she lived, her dr agreed to deliver her baby at home but only if she was near a hospital. She had an Rh factor. She had her baby in our home on the lake.
As it turned out, I chose natural childbirth in a birthing room, using the Lamaze method (and yoga breathing) and I planned to breast feed for a year. Your father would have to be there if I did and he attended every Lamaze class with me.
Strangely you and Joann’s baby were born the same day. She had a healthy delivery and named him Shane. I came home 3 days later and named you Shannon. I was in labor 16 hours and despite my girth, I delivered a 6 lb baby which was very surprising to me. You were born around 5pm. You were so petite with bright red hair and a healthy set of lungs. Your apgar score was perfect. I was ready to take you home but you developed jaundice. I was told I could leave but you had to stay an extra day. I sobbed at the thought of leaving without you and doing so was unimaginable. We all went homeJoann had dinner waiting, full of energy and not nursing an episiotomy as I was. She made a seafood stew. I was very impressed with her resilience. She went home the next day.
Our lives were complete. We were very happy. You moved into your little room with neutral colors and a rainbow with a doll knitted by grandma as your first toy. Grandma made an abundance of things for the first girl in the Scheffer family. Grandma and Grandpa Scheffer came to stay first and Grandpa Herrick came 2 weeks later. You were the first grandchild for the Scheffers and the 4th for the Herricks.
You cried more than I expected and nursing did not go as well as I planned. You were colicky tho no one labeled it that. You had projectile vomiting for quite awhile so we switched to formula after 3 months. I worried that you were getting enough nutrition. When I was awake at night, I researched any symptom I thought was problematic, books instead of internet. You developed asthma and had to take the most vile medicine that you couldn’t keep down. I had to take you for a chest X-ray to rule out pneumonia. They put you in a kind of harness that kept your arms up so they could get a good picture of your lungs. You screamed and I sobbed. When you were older you developed motion sickness.
Despite these little things, you were perfectly healthy and I thought you were the most beautiful creature on the planet. When you woke in the middle of the night, I rocked you in the rocking chair in your bedroom and sang Circle Game by Joni Mitchell. Strangers always wanted to touch your red hair. Grandma was so proud to have a red-headed granddaughter that everyone said looked like her. Of course everyone thought you looked more like your father than me but I thought you took the best qualities we had to offer from both of us.
The experience of giving you birth was magic and I wanted you to have my story as I remembered it to commemorate your 40th.
On a side note, you were born on a full moon and the Grateful Dead were playing at the pyramids in Egypt under that same full moon. Music has always underscored events in my life. I had forgotten this detail til now.
Celebrate the beauty in your life as I have in the miracle of you.
Love you always,
Mom❤️
