March 25, 1979, Part Deux

After Joe and I returned home from our Boy Scout Camp experience and delivered the children to their mother in Chicago Heights, IL, I discovered I was expecting. It wasn't particularly welcome news. We had only been married seven or eight months and were already having some pretty critical "issues". Separately...secretly...I think we both wondered if bringing a child into the mix was a wise idea, but for different reasons. Joe, however, was the only one who said out loud that he wanted me to have an abortion. He already had two children by his first marriage. I had none but always wanted to be a mother...and we WERE married, for Pete's sake. I had already sacrificed some significant things to be with him. I wasn't willing to sacrifice our child, too. We had some serious, tearful discussions over a period of a week or two. It was abundantly clear to me that if I did as he wished, I would never feel the same about him again, and our marriage was doomed. I didn't threaten that--just felt it in my heart. Finally, he acquiesced by saying something like, "I don't want to lose our marriage over this, so I think we should just move forward with the pregnancy and make the best of it." That's what I wanted to hear!

I made an appointment with an OB/GYN group of three young doctors. The baby's due date was established for April 23, 1979. In those days, pregnancy wasn't covered by insurance unless it had complications that required surgery. (Not sure if insurance companies now cover pregnancy. They should!) We were given a bill of just over $600 which had to be paid in full before the due date. We managed it, since we were both teaching...but I worried about what we would be cutting out of our non-existent budget to get it paid. Also in those days, ultrasound technology was very new. Doctors only ordered ultrasounds for high risk pregnancies--which would include mothers over age 35. I was only 31 with no complications, so we weren't blessed with knowing the gender of our baby. The doctor who saw me the most during my monthly appointments guessed "female" due to the heartbeat of the baby. (Apparently females have a faster heart rate.) The doc said he was about 80% accurate. We'd have to wait and see!

My pregnancy was remarkably devoid of nasty things. For example, I had NO morning sickness. I wasn't turned off by tastes or smells. I didn't crave anything. Wonderful! I did gain weight fairly quickly, though, prompting Joe to ask the doctor if that should be happening. The doctor's response was, "Generally speaking, the more weight the mother gains, the healthier the baby." I actually outgrew my first round of maternity clothes and had to buy more in a larger size. That should have clued me in that I was putting on FAT, not just baby weight, but I was inexperienced in those things and didn't have a clue!

That winter turned out to be almost tragic. Joe's father, in Greencastle, IN, had to have a prostate surgical procedure. At the very same time, my mother was in the hospital in Streator, IL, getting cancerous polyps removed from her bladder. We couldn't be in either place by way of support because Joe had abdominal pain. When I took him to the ER, they decided that he needed to have an appendectomy. In those days, an appendectomy required a 6-inch incision. (Not the laparoscopic thing that they do now.) I taught school by day; went to the hospital to be with Joe after school; and called both Joe's family and my own at night to check up on everyone. I was five months pregnant at the time but barely showing. Each night, I would call Joe in the hospital to talk. This episode caused him to become softer and grateful for my dedication to him when he was down. It was new territory for us. One evening, he was feeling better. He hadn't had anything to eat by mouth for a few days while they waited for his guts to make noises. He told me to bring fried chicken when I came to see him the next day. I thought he was joking. Imagine my surprise when he was actually angry with me for not bringing the chicken! Thankfully, that evening, the doctor decided that Joe could have a "low residue" meal which included steak. I was saved!

In a week's time, I brought Joe home. He rested comfortably for a couple of days, then he started to run a fever and his incision began to hurt more than it should have...and turned colors. Instead of getting better each day, he got worse. Back to the doctor who re-admitted him to the hospital due to an infection at the incision site. Each day, they ran tubes into his incision to irrigate the area to flush out infection. Fluids went in and nasty stuff came out. I guess he cursed a nurse, at one point. I'm glad I wasn't there for that! I was upset with his doctor, however. When I inquired what would cause an infection, he took it as criticism and informed me, in no uncertain terms, that surgery in a bowel area was risky, at best. I wasn't implying malpractice. I was just curious. Whatever!

Joe was in the hospital for ten days the second time. His roommate, Carl, was a fellow who was undergoing chemotherapy for bone cancer. Joe commented that the poor guy was up vomiting on a regular basis. One evening when I visited Joe, Carl's priest was visiting Carl. His comment to me, quietly as he was leaving, was that Carl wouldn't be with us all that much longer. In the two-week duration of hospital stays, my condition had gone from barely-showing to obvious. The hospital provided Carl with a bagged snack every day, consisting of a sandwich and something else. He could tell that I was running myself ragged and he had no stomach for the bagged snack. He offered it to me, saying "I haven't touched it. I promise." When I quizzed him about why touching it would matter, he said, "You'd be surprised at how many people think cancer is contagious." I ached for him. I graciously accepted his offering and ate every crumb!

While all of this was happening, we were entering the Christmas season. I needed to get a Christmas tree and get it home without my husband. I managed. (I was so proud of myself!) Then the blizzard of 1979 hit. Neither Joe nor I were in any condition to shovel snow. I don't know how we managed, but we did. The tree got put up and we got dug out.

As soon as Joe felt better, we had to get cracking on a nursery for the baby. The house we were renting had only two bedrooms upstairs. Ours was one. The other was to be part guest room and part nursery. There was a tiny space under the stairs on the bottom floor to put another kid in... (Eric was elected.) We decided to paint the stairway and the guest room. There was my just-recovering-from-surgery husband on a scaffold, painting the stairwell...while I rolled paint on the walls of the bedroom. Both of us were shocked when the paint that we had just applied started peeling off in big sheets! Whaaaat?? Since we had bought the paint from Sherwin Williams, we went to them for advice. They sent a representative to the house. It was finally determined that the paint already on the walls was calcimine paint that is water based with chalk. We very quickly determined that the cheapest way to go was just to roll water on the walls and strip what peeled. It wasn't fun.

My parents had a tradition to buy a grandchild's crib. We settled on a dark wood Jenny Lind crib for the baby. We put that up in the nursery/guest room sometime during the winter. But we had lots of time before due date, so we weren't too concerned. It was agreed that my mother would come to help when the baby was born. I definitely would need her!

Later in the pregnancy, I couldn't breathe well. The baby was somehow positioned in my rib cage that I needed a pillow at my back to throw my stance to make it easier to breathe without pain. Joe took me to a nice Italian restaurant for my birthday in early March. I was hungry, but I couldn't eat everything. There were too many things taking up space in my belly!!

One weekend in late March, my stepchildren and my in-laws came to visit. That was a first! I'm not totally sure where we put everyone. I think Eric slept in the under-stair room. The grandparents were probably put in the guest room, and Stephanie was probably slated for the couch. I simply don't remember. I do remember that Stephanie (age 8 by this time) and I were engaged in some craft project. We had a good time. That night, we all gathered in the TV room to watch Larry Bird take the Indiana State University Sycamores to a victory in the state semi-finals. Joe was an ISU alumn. The house was electric with victory! I, however, was very tired. My belly just ached down low...like carrying the baby weight was too much. I fell asleep on the couch even with my company there. Around 10:30, everyone decided to go to bed. That's when the fun began.

There was one bathroom in the house. Joe was on the pot, but I suddenly felt like I had wet my pants. I commanded the throne, just to determine what was going on. My water broke! And as I sat on the toilet, I became aware that there were other signs that labor had started. I instantly started having contractions...and the contractions were about 2 1/2 minutes apart. This should not be happening! Joe and I had taken LaMaze classes. We knew that first babies should take forever to be born. Contractions would start at MANY minutes apart and gradually get closer...but mine were close already. Joe, who had been drinking beer all evening with the basketball game, decided to take a shower and make a pot of coffee. I decided I would just go to bed and get "a good night's sleep". We were timing contractions which were getting closer by the minute. Joe thought we should go to the hospital. I thought we were being foolish. Our baby wasn't due for a month yet. Nothing was going the way I had been told to expect!

Finally, I told Joe to call the doctor. He did, then handed me the phone. I told Dr. Goldstone (on call) that my water had broken, and I had contractions that were 2 1/2 minutes apart. His indignant response was, "What are you calling ME for?" I asked, "What should I do?" He said, "Go to the hospital!" Duh....

We woke Joe's folks to tell them we were leaving for the hospital and ask that they watch over Eric and Stephanie while we were gone. Helen, God bless her, asked if there was anything she could do to help. I said, "Yes! You go! I'm not ready for this!" She laughed about that for years.

The date was March 24th...and it was snowing. The hospital was 45 minutes away. It was gettin close to midnight as we drove through the dark, but I was hanging on by my fingernails. Contractions were very strong and very close together. I was pre-registered at the hospital, thanks to our LaMaze class, but I still had to sign some papers because it appeared that my baby would be premature. I was taken up to a hospital room while Joe was detained elsewhere. When the nurse in charge checked me, it was determined that I was ready to deliver! I heard the nurse say, "When Mr. McNary gets here, get him suited up." The nurse offhandedly said to me, when I complained about not being ready, "It's always the ones who aren't ready who go the fastest!"

I was taken to delivery and told to push when I felt the urge. I never felt the urge! With each contraction, I was told to push, and in between contractions, they poked and prodded me. It hurt! At one point, I sucked up instead of bore down. The nurse yelled at me. "Get in control, young lady!" The joke was on her. I was in complete control! I pushed and pushed and pushed, and nothing happened. Finally, the doctor decided to use forcepts to deliver my child. (Just another painful deal.) I heard him say, "Well, here's a hand." Apparently, my child had her head tilted the wrong way for an easy delivery, and one of her hands was in the birth canal.

Although Joe and I had never talked about it, I wasn't averse to having pain meds to relieve delivery pain. Unfortunately, I was too far into labor when I got to the hospital to be offered pain-relieving drugs. Unwittingly, I gave birth without anesthesia. I felt every contraction and every stitch. Suddenly, we had a girl baby! I was totally elated that I had survived childbirth!

Our baby arrived a month ahead of time, yet she weighed 6 pounds, 11 ounces. A keeper! When I went to the recovery room, my legs wouldn't stop shaking. No one told me to expect that.. Then Joe and I had the task of naming our child. Since she was a month early, we hadn't settled on names yet, but the nurse was bugging us for a name. We quickly decided on Megan Elizabeth. Megan Elizabeth McNary seemed so fitting. (Had she been a boy, I'm not sure we could have agreed on a name so readily.)

When I was finally taken to a room, I was so elated that I couldn't sleep! I sent Joe home. He got there in the early hours of the morning, in time to make a pot of cofffee and be there when everyone woke up. Stephanie asked where I was. Joe told her that I was in the hospital and had delivered her sister. She apparently didn't believe him and searched all over the house looking for me!

In the meantime, the hospital nurse delivered my child to me. As she held Megan, she said, "This is a pretty baby. I have seen a lot of babies in this hospital, so I know a pretty baby when I see one...and this is a pretty baby!" I agreed! Megan Elizabeth McNary, born at Ingalls Memorial Hospital in Harvey, IL, on March 25, 1979, became the love of my life. That love has only been usurped by the birth of my grandchildren.

Joe and I did not survive as a couple, but my memories of my daughter's birth will never leave me. Her 33rd birthday approaches. I love you, Megan!