Fun Friday…Birthday

Today (Thursday) was a good day. I really enjoyed all of the awesome birthday wishes on Twitter, Facebook, etc…
Thanks for taking the time to make my day even more special.

My mom asked if she could write something for my birthday. She’s on her second week of recovery after surgery on her shoulder. She can only type with one hand, and finally realized it was more than she could take on and asked my dad for help.

Here’s what they came up with… (love you both)

Today is Bridget’s birthday — oh yes it is ..[sung to the tune of "Bye Bye Birdie"] ..”we don’t love anyone as much as you-ooou”…

Mom was gonna write up something for your ‘blog’ regarding that special day, 40 ‘something’ years ago… but then she took too many pain pills and I haven’t seen her in two days. It sucks getting over rotator cuff surgery!

…. So left to my own devices and memory — don’t count on it however — I’ll try to re-construct that wonderful day of July 22nd, 1968.

First, let’s consider that I was 21 and your mother was 18. She had just graduated high school one month before. I had only been out of the navy 7 months. The pregnancy had been, somewhat, hidden while she was in school [sure like "nobody" knew -- right!]. You were not ‘due’ until SEPTEMBER 2nd or 3rd according to the ‘experts’.

Well it’s early AM (I was sleeping) when your mother wakes me up with … “something is wrong”… I think it certainly is as it’s about 5 AM and I was sleeping! (Remember this is 1968 and there weren’t any “classes” for pregnancy instructions for us).

Naturally I told her to roll over and go back to sleep. 5:30 AM — … “something is really wrong” says she. This time I wake-up and ask… “so what do you want me to do?” (brilliant ‘eh?). We call her mother! Makes sense as her mom has had 6 kids — she must know something?! She tells us to call our doctor. At 6:30 in the morning you get “the service” and they say the doctor will call us.

Now it’s about 7:15 AM — we’ve had several back-n-forth phone calls with her mom — and finally the doctor calls. The ‘feeling’ and situation is explained to him — he says “WAIT UNTIL 9 AM AND COME INTO HIS OFFICE”. What’s a couple of just better than teenagers to do?? We say “okay” and hang up.

We call her mom to “report” and her mom — her response: She’s on her way to our house [only 8 miles away] she tells us to pack our stuff to go to the hospital.

About the time ‘grandma’ gets there — your mom is having labor pains every few minutes! Now all I can remember is carrying your mother down a flight of stairs, getting into my car, driving like a mad man to St. Jude, filling out more paper work than buying a house, and waiting and waiting. Remember these were the times when the ‘fathers’ had no part in the delivery — we just got to smoke cigarettes and hang out in a cinder block room with plastic chairs.

….THEN I WAS A “DADDY”! (The best thing that had ever happened to me — to THIS day)

I was told you were “premature” — evidently! 3 pounds 8 ounces! They had you in ‘intensive care’ in an “isolette” with all kinds of tubes, monitors, bells, whistles, and wrapped up in a plastic box.

They wanted me to fill out the birth certificate — your mother and I had wanted you to be a Bridget Anne and I got to spell it however I wanted…so if you’ve wondered why it only has one “T”….now you know.

I finally got to see you mother — I got to tell her all the ‘details’ as nobody had told her much. We were told it was ‘touch-n-go’ for the next few days… I can still feel the fear that both of us had.

We NEVER got to hold you — or touch you, REALLY tough on your mother (rules were rules back in 1968). You had a couple of set backs with ‘Jaundice” and some breathing disorders — but you proved to be a ‘fighter’.

We were at the hospital every day (sometimes several times a day) just looking in the window and this tiny child in a plastic box… eventually we got to see more of you as they took off some of the ‘equipment’ and you had a tiny head with tons of dark hair, beautiful eyes, and the itty-bitty’ist fingers and toes. We were told we could not have you until you weighed 5 pounds.

5-1/2 WEEKS later you tipped the scales at 5 pounds, one ounce. You came home. The “nursery nurses” at St. Jude cried when you left… they had done a wonderful job keeping you safe and now they were going to miss you. We were told over 80 babies came, and went, while they had you in their care.

Guess all in all you made your ‘due date’ as it was almost September 1st when we finally got to ‘touch’ you. You are a blessing to us. Always will be. We love you. Happy Birthday to YOU.

Love ~Dad & Mom

I was told I looked a lot like a monkey when I was born…do you see a resemblance?

Tagged as: Baby, Birth, Birthday, Blessings, Parents, Premature