Birthday Bonanza Part II

 
Last week’s blog left off with more promised October birthday recognitions. My sister-in-law’s birthday is sandwiched between mine and Rachel, my daughter’s birthday. Becky and my brother, Rick, celebrated forty years of marriage and three great kids and their spouses. She is a lovely, loyal, family-oriented woman who loves deeply and unselfishly. 

My daughter entered this world forty-seven years ago. My ex-husband completed his jump school as a paratrooper stationed in North Carolina. We packed our large Olds 88 with Eric, twenty-two months, my very pregnant tummy, and all our earthly goods and said tearful goodbyes to my parents, who we lived with in Illinois. Driving across the country, I looked in the back seat at Eric. He was wedged in his car seat between boxes in the back seat that threatened to engulf him. He traveled like a trooper with books and snacks to keep him occupied. 

We settled into a tiny two-bedroom trailer in a dumpy trailer park outside the base town. We had no friends or family. The round of doctors appointments, commissary shopping and base hospital orientation before the baby’s birth was dizzying. 

 I sat down, tired from unpacking, and Eric would come up to my tummy and pat me, saying, “My baby?”

“Yes, Eric. Do you want a sister or brother?” 

His hazel-brown eyes looked up, “A sisser, mommy. Ergie (how he pronounced his name) want a sisser.”

“So do I, Eric. Her name is Rachel.” I intuitively knew I was having a little girl. Ultrasound to determine the baby’s sex wasn’t commonly used until the 1980s.

He clapped his hands, danced around and sang, “I have a sisser. Ergie have a sisser!”

My ex tried to talk me into his mom coming to help, not my mom. Even though his mom was a lovely woman, I dug my heels in, and we fought. As I slammed the front door and walked the length of the dark gravel drive past the other lit trailers, I cried and told God I wanted to go home–to the familiar and supportive home we had left. I knew it wasn’t possible. I returned to the trailer, and he apologized and dropped his insistence for his mom to help. My mom flew out a week after Rachel was born.

Labor began in the middle of a Saturday night a week before my due date. We waited until morning and left Eric with a neighbor lady, sweet Weltha, whom we met when we moved in. After settling into the delivery room, the labor pains were closer together and grew intense but centered exclusively in my back. Even during excruciating back labor, the military nursing staff would not allow me out of bed. They caught me kneeling on the bed with my belly down to alleviate most of the pain. That was not authorized! Birthing experiences are vastly different now, thank the Lord. 

Relieved to be told it was time to push, I hee-hee-hee’d my way to greet our new daughter. She was perfect, healthy, whole and crying lustily with life.

At home, Rachel spent her waking hours in her infant seat. Eric was a rambunctious toddler. He tried to crawl into the seat with her and patted her face roughly.

“Be gentle, Eric. She’s a tiny baby.” I said nervously. I didn’t anticipate bringing home a second child would increase my work and worries. 

“My baby sisser, momma. Rae-rae, my baby!” he shouted proudly. The nickname Rae-rae suited her and stuck. She was and is our little ray of sunshine.

I look back with a long view to Rachel’s grade school years, turbulent teens and early adulthood giving birth to her two children. How can she be a grandma to one-year-old Levi, her son’s son? Impossible to grab hold of the fleeting passage of time. I am reminded to count my blessings from God, count them one by one, as the song says. The fourth verse is meaningful, adding hope to the beautiful and challenging times throughout the years. May these words give you hope as you look back.

“So, amid the conflict, whether great or small,

Do not be discouraged, God is over all;

Count your many blessings, angels will attend,

Help and comfort give you to your journey’s end.

Count your blessings, name them one by one; 

Count your blessings, see what God hath done.”

Composer, Johnson Oatman (1897)