Jump ahead to when I was about 36 years old. I felt desperate that year to go back home to Michigan for Christmas. I wanted Christmas like when I was a kid. I wanted someone else to make it a special day for me. I was tired. We went. It wasn’t the same.
A year after I got married (age 25) we moved to Pennsylvania and for the first few years we came back to Michigan every Christmas. Then it got to be uncomfortable to travel during my second pregnancy and we didn’t go that year, nor any of the years after, except for the one mentioned above. It was time to establish our own traditions, and find our own ways. My father in law said, “well, we’d decide to do something one year because it seemed like a good idea, and then the next year we’d say, ‘well, that was good so let’s do it again,’ and then after that the kids expected it because it had become a tradition so then we had to do it forever after even if we didn’t really want to.” That’s how traditions start.
In PA we attended a church that had a church service on Christmas morning. That was really hard for me at first – it wasn’t how Christmas morning was supposed to be spent! We had celebrated Christ’s birth and the reason for the season the Sunday closest to Christmas, so why did we have to go there on the holiday? They also had no choirs, no Christmas pageant, and no “excitement” going on. That was a big adjustment too. But I grew used to it and we developed our own tradition: open stockings beforehand, and open gifts afterwards. This meant for anxious children wanting to leave the fellowship time at church to get home, but it’s the way we set it up. Some families just opened everything the night before. I liked the idea of having it on Christmas, at least, and also knew they’d never settle down to bed right after opening all of their gifts! Not that some of them settled ANYWAY with all the anticipation. Our rule was that they couldn’t wake us until 7 a.m. One year I set the clocks forward so that we could actually sleep in until 8, or try, amidst the loud whisperings from down the hall. They didn’t appreciate it when they found out, but we did. When we got home, I would ask my husband to take them in a bedroom while I put out the stack of gifts – and one year we dropped them off about a mile from home and let them walk/run/trot/zoom to the house while we went ahead and built the pile. I remember that we had bought each of them new pillows and comforters/sleeping bags that year and with six children, the stack was humongous! I will never forget David’s face when he peeked around the corner from the front door.
Christmas was my job. And I did everything I could within a small budget to make it a day that everyone would enjoy. I took joy in that. But a part of me always wished that I had some surprises to look forward to as well. That part that was my Mom taking care of me lived on and sometimes I wished I could feel that way again.
Sometimes I still do.
To remember a time when the responsibilities belonged to someone else, and I only had to assist – now and again it seems like it would be so sweet to have such rest.
continued….
When I was young, Christmas was the best day of the year. Birthdays were great too, but on Christmas, everyone participated, and everyone was happy, not just me. I would think and think about what to get for each sibling and each parent and grandparent. I’d save up the little money I had and manage to get something for each person. I would play a video in my mind where I imagined them opening the gift and being surprised and delighted with what I had chosen. Gpa got a can of tobacco every year, pretty much, but always managed to look like nothing could ever be better. Gma would exult over slippers, or a brooch or whatever. My biggest triumph one year was a beautiful candy dish with a lid that I bought her that stayed on her dining room cabinet forever, always filled with some kind of candy. Whenever I saw it, I knew that I had made her happy and done well that year.
We would get up early in the morning and open our stockings, hung from various pole lamps and door handles, depending on the furnishings at the time. It was so nice to get a small gift or coloring book and of course, more candy than a day usually brought us. We’d nag Mom and Dad out of bed, and Mom would have to have a cup of coffee before we could start. (That’s pretty much why I decided never to drink coffee – didn’t want to need it in the morning. ) All in pajamas, and in later years with hair combed (or Mom still in rollers), we’d gather in the living room to see, for the first time, the PILE. Such excitement! Such beauty! Such anticipation. I don’t think we had a special arrangement for who handed out the gifts, but they went around and it was rather a frenzy of opening things at once and shouting, “Sharon! I got Stratego!” Or “Look at my new record player!” Wrapping paper tidbits and wads littered the floor liberally as we continued until there were no gifts left. In between opening my own, I watched as each person opened their gifts from me. Everyone was happy. Everyone had given and received new stuff, and time to use it was just ahead. But not now.
Because Gpa and Gma were coming at 10 a.m. and we had to clean up the living room and put our gifts into piles under the tree before they arrived and we started all over again. “They’re here!” someone would shout. A couple of us would throw on coats and boots and head outside to help them carry in the packages – hoping they needed a LOT of help! Maybe we were dressed by then – I don’t remember. This round was just as much fun, if not quite as long.
Then Dad headed into the kitchen to start making his “big breakfast” with Mom assisting and insisting that my sister and I get in there to help set the table. The kitchen wasn’t very big, and the dinette was tiny, but we squashed the 7 or 8 of us (depending on which year we’re talking about) in there and the eggs, bacon, sausage, biscuits, and pancakes feast began.
After we helped clean up after breakfast, we had time to play and visit with the grandparents, and then it was time to set the table again, and eat, and clean up again and then play or watch TV. Gpa and Gma would go to my aunt’s house on Christmas Eve and sometimes stay overnight there. They would come to our house in the morning and then leave to go back there for dinner at 3 pm. We usually didn’t have company for Christmas dinner – sometimes Dad had to go to work, sometimes one aunt or another was involved in the plans – that part varied.
The Sunday closest to Christmas was when we celebrated the Lord’s birth at church, with Christmas pageants (I played Mary once – all I did was walk on in costume, sit down behind a moveable cardboard “stable” wall and pick up a doll and then sit there holding it while we all sang. I was about 11 and fine with having no lines.) Mostly there were choirs and cantatas and songs and candy given out at the end of it all. Once I was in high school, I was in it all the time, and it was joyous.
There was a time in my life when time dragged. There was a time when events and opportunities took forever to arrive. I can hardly remember.
Now, and especially since I started working full time again, days evaporate. Weeks disappear. Months jog past me, and before I fully realize that it’s October, it’s almost November. Holidays come and go, with little appeal other than a few special moments snagged between long work days.
Working full time, I feel like I’m never home. When I am home, I don’t want to leave. I long for a few days to get my stuff organized, to sit and do nothing, to read and read and read. But no, the office calls me again, and the days off are few and usually filled with traveling. There’s no end in sight.
Sounds rather bleak and sometimes feels that way. But really, I’m just tired, and there are two more work days and three more work evenings before the blessed Sunday day of worship and rest. Not inviting company is more delightful, most of the time.
Maybe it’s because we waiting 6 years to have child # 6 (also known now as Amy Lynn) http://saelyn.blogspot.com/2011/08/its-campingnovel-writing-time.html after having five kids in five years previous to that, but this time the labor took longer. Out of practice, I suppose.
Booth Maternity had closed down by then, and Dee had moved out of state, so I found another midwife group, which also met on City Line Ave but the delivery had to be in Center City at Pennsylvania Hospital. http://www.pennmedicine.org/pahosp/. We only drove to PA Hospital (America’s first hospital – happily, the equipment has been updated. 🙂 ) once.
On the big day, we contacted the babysitter Karen Krispin who lived a few blocks away. She came over around 7 a.m. and we headed down to the hospital. Well, no excitement this time. No progress. “All we could do was to sit, sit, sit, sit, and we did not like it, not one little bit.” http://www.seussville.com/books/book_detail.php?isbn=9780394800011 Finally after about 4 or 5 hours the midwives suggested strongly that we should go home. I didn’t quite agree, but wasn’t sure what to do. We went home and I laid up in the bedroom having contractions all afternoon, checking to see if they were getting close enough together or not. It was a miserable afternoon.
Around 6:30 pm things were picking up again and I sent a message with one of the kids to send Dennis upstairs. He had just finished changing a tire on our car. I couldn’t get hold of Karen because her line was busy so I told David to go across the street to get the neighbor as Plan B. There was a complete page of directions specifying whom to call and why and when for every possible situation. The kids were 11, 9, 7, 7, and nearly 6 then but I still wouldn’t leave them alone since they were all under 12.
The neighbor hurried in and we walked out about 7:15 pm or so (funny how I don’t remember exactly by the 5th time around….) Another neighbor found it hilarious that he had just seen Dennis finish with the tire and then out we went, obviously in labor. What if!
It had been an all day labor and for the first time I was in no mood for joking around between contractions. I was very quiet as Dennis made his way quickly down the Schuylkill to the Vine St exit. He said, “Are you okay?”
I replied, “Just get there.”
We pulled up onto the street by the correct entrance and he put the flashers on to help me inside, and then go to the parking structure and park (a block away.) We walked inside and it was dim and empty. Within a contraction or two there in the lobby (and they were only about a minute apart by now) the midwife JeriLynn rushed in and helped me over to the elevator. Why no wheelchair, I wondered? The one time I’m about to have the baby I have to walk all this way? By the time we were in the elevator I had stated, “I feel a need to push.”
“Don’t push!” Jerilyn exclaimed. “Let’s get you upstairs first. We made it to the elevator and she pushed the button for floor #8. Someone walked in after us and pushed the button for floor #4. I felt like saying, “so, you want to watch this birth, or something?” When we got to the 8th floor, I remember thinking that this was the first time I had ever had to walk while having contractions. Previously I had always been able to stop and wait before moving again. But I did not want to have the baby on the floor in the hallway, so I made myself walk. Step, step, step, Lord help me, step step step. We made it into the room and as the contraction ended I whipped off my jumper and she seemed surprised that I wasn’t wearing anything underneath. Well, what would have been the point of wearing other clothing, hmmmmm? I laid down on the big double bed in the birthing suite, and Jerilyn said that she would be right back, she was just going to change. I thought about Laura (see Labor #3) and said, “no, you’d better not!” The nurse arrived, having been detained crossing the bridge from New Jersey because of a U2 concert. Dennis rushed in. I had on my ugly hospital half-a-gown and I laid on my side and just wished that it was over or I’d never been pregnant, or something! I’m not sure how long we were at the hospital, but she was born at 8:04 pm and I was so thrilled that the labor was over (she had been turned a bit sideways, apparently) that it didn’t even register when they said, “It’s a girl!” Then I said, “did you say it’s a girl?”
“Yes, it’s a girl.”
I was SO happy – with 4 boys and only one girl at home – this was wonderful. I noticed the clock and asked Dennis to call the home where the church Bible Study was being held, knowing that it was about time for them to pray together. At the Bible Study in Jim and Linda’s back yard, Ellen had just asked everyone to pray for me because she knew how it felt to be in labor all day like that. The phone rang. Jim went inside as someone joked that it was probably Dennis calling. Jim answered, walked outside, and announced, “It’s a girl!” Everyone cheered and then gave thanks to the Lord.
He called home and told the kids, to more excitement and shouting.
Julie, age 9, wrote a poem about her new baby sister the next day. More on that next time….
Well, Dennis had been working for 16 hours and he called around midnight to see if anything was going on because the baby was one week overdue, which is usually about when they come. I said, “nah, nothing happening .”
“I think I’ll stop at Pathmark http://pathmark.inserts2online.com/customer_Frame.jsp?drpStoreID=270 then and get the groceries so then I can just come home and sleep.”
“Ok.” Dennis hates to shop, so this was a good plan. He arrived there and spent about an hour going around the store finding everything on the list I had given to him earlier that day.
In the meantime, not long after we hung up, contractions started. By 2 a.m. I had talked with the midwife twice and we determined that things were getting serious. There had been an awesome thunderstorm outside and I went out onto the porch once or twice to see it and chat with all the late night neighbors who regularly stayed outside till about 3 or 4 a.m. in Germantown, Philadelphia. I called the ladies next door to come over temporarily until my friend who lived 45 minutes away could come. I called Pathmark and asked them to page Dennis and tell him I was in labor and that he should come quickly. I called the ambulance to take me just in case Dennis didn’t get the message soon enough. Remember, this was 1986, before cell phones! I didn’t know if he would get there in time or not, as the store was about 15 minutes away. I got my suitcase ready (all of this in-between contractions) and was ready to go.
The older ladies next door walked down their steps and were about to walk up our steps when they encountered a drunken man passed out on the steps. Never happened before or after – only that night. I was a bit preoccupied and didn’t really pay attention to what they were saying about climbing over his body on the way in!
When Dennis was paged, he had just found the last item on the list and he hurried to customer service and then abandoned the groceries to rush home. Dennis rushed in then, saying that he had had to move the guy over in front of someone else’s house. Just then the ambulance pulled up. Dennis asked if I wanted to ride with him or the ambulance, and I said, “the ambulance” because of how fast everything had gone the time before and how fast it was going now. Two ambulance guys walked up to the door with a stretcher and were surprised to see me walking out onto the porch. I said, “Let’s go” and I walked down the steps. They said that I had to be on the stretcher and couldn’t just climb into the back of the ambulance. So – in full view of over a dozen late night neighbors, they set up the stretcher on the sidewalk (or pavement as they say there) and made me lie down on it. It was a little embarrassing, really, and my neighbor the nurse across the street later told me that it really made her laugh. They covered me with a blanket and then lifted me into the back of the ambulance. I told them that I had written down directions to Booth Maternity Hospital http://www.womencarepa.org/faq.asp and they said that they were all set, don’t worry about it.
What they actually did was say that they would follow Dennis, who, as you remember, had just worked 16 hours and shopped. He had only been to the hospital with me once or twice that time around and was in no position to remember that there was a road closed and we had to take a different way to get there. So, here I was lying in the back of the ambulance, wishing that David and Julie could have seen me get in (I like to share my excitement) but figuring it was better that they sleep and also better that they not possibly get scared. It was actually more comfortable to be lying down in there than sitting up in the midwife’s husband old work Chevy, or our Chevette or the brown Ford Fairlane station wagon we were currently driving. Suddenly I realized that we were on the Schuylkill Expressway, and that was NOT the way to City Line Ave from Germantown. I said, “you’re going the wrong way! You’re supposed to be going to City Line Ave.” The guy next to me yelled up front, “Hey, Jimmy, we got to turn this ambulance around!” Neither of them was certain how to get there so I gave them some directions from the first exit and we ended up over near the Zoo and then Jimmy knew how to proceed to City Line Ave.
We arrived at the hospital and for some odd reason, the security guard waved us around the back of the building, which I knew was not correct. The ambulance pulled up at a door and as the doors opened I noticed that the sign above the door read, “Deliveries Only.” That did it. I laughed and laughed and laughed (between contractions.) We got inside and the guard disappeared, and I said, “I don’t believe this. Nobody listens to the woman who has come here EVERY week practically for years give the directions.” I told them to take me down the hall to the left to the elevator and then go to the third floor.
Dee wasn’t supposed to be on duty that night but she swapped with someone else so she could attend the birth of a fourth child of ours. She was quite pleased to check me over and see that we actually might have a little time on our hands instead of the instant situation in the third labor (see previous post.) Dennis rushed in at some point and a nurse was there, and Kevin was born 45 minutes later. It was the only time that we were able to have a mirror so that I could view the birth (thanx to Dennis’ remembering and having time to ask!)
I said to Dennis, “I’m sorry you had to leave the groceries behind after you did all that shopping.”
He replied, “Well, at least now I know where to find everything on the list.” 🙂
Perhaps it was Kevin’s love of thunderstorms that brought him “running” when I was watching that one. And perhaps it was that quick trip past the Zoo that engendered his lifelong love of critters. Not really, but it’s a fun thought.
One more story to go….
After you’ve had a boy and a girl, there isn’t a lot to excite the relatives, so we were pretty thrilled to let our families know that we were expecting twins! I had always hoped to have twins – Mom and Aunt Esther are mirror-image twins (one right handed, one left handed, identical) and I just thought they were cool. Anyway, from the very start I was measuring “big” and so at 21 weeks I finally had an ultrasound and it confirmed what we told our two toddlers: “God’s giving us TWO babies!”
I told my mom and sister, but we decided to announce it to the rest of the world using Doublemint gum. Announcements were sent out and also read in Dennis’s company staff meeting, that said, “Double your pleasure, double your fun, the Bratchers are having twins, everyone!” My aunt, the twin, taped hers to her refrigerator with the plan to chew it when she got the announcement of their safe arrival, which she did.
It was Feb 18 and I was 4 days overdue, and talking with my grandmother from about 7:30-8:00 pm and then said goodbye because I needed to use the restroom. As soon as I got into the bathroom, I felt contractions coming, and coming, and coming. I sat there a really long time, glad that David and Julie were behaving themselves, playing happily in the hallway. Once I realized that these were indeed serious contractions, I asked 3 1/2 year old David to go to our bedroom and bring the phone, which I knew had a really long cord. From there I called the midwife and then called Dennis, who was about 20 minutes the other side of the hospital, having his first lesson in Dutch. (This becomes significant after both twins marry Dutch-Canadian wives!) I was about to call the ambulance service, but the midwife said that she lived nearby and would pick me up. I called my friends Yonhee and Colin who were to babysit and called the ladies next door to come over until Yonhee and Colin got there. Eventually I got up and put David and Julie to bed, grabbed my suitcase and headed downstairs in between contractions, which were about 3 minutes apart already.
The neighbor ladies came in, Yonhee and Colin came in, and then the midwife named Laura arrived. I waddled to the car and off we went. When I’m in labor I feel perfectly fine between contractions (thank you Lord!) and so I was cracking jokes all the way down Lincoln Drive as she drove us there. We arrived at 9:15 pm and Dennis had just arrived and we went to the labor room because someone else was garnering all the staff attention in the examining room by having a breach birth right then and there. Laura went to change quickly and Dee, who had delivered Julie and become my friend, came into the room alone. I said, “Dee, I feel ready to push,” and she and Dennis got me onto the labor room table. She called to another floor and said she needed a nurse NOW. Pow! Before she could even put on gloves, there was a push that could no longer be held back, and someone said, “it’s a boy!” I was barely cognizant that it had happened. I rested for three minutes while Dee quickly dealt with the baby-who-would-become-Brian and handed him to the nurse who had rushed in. Another push and Pow! Someone said, “it’s another boy!” I(soon-to-be-named-Timothy.) It was 9:25 pm.
At this point all I heard was “the cord’s around his neck” so I started shouting, “Make him breathe! Make him breathe! Make him breathe!” Dennis then said, “he’s crying, already, he’s breathing!” Ok, time to calm down. 🙂 I said, “thank you Lord, thank you Lord, thank you Lord!” not only because they were both okay, but because it was such a quick and awesome labor experience.
Number 4 labor got even more dramatic….
So, I had been laying in the labor room for about 7 or 8 hours, water broken, monitor over my bulging belly, regular contractions. Lamaze class had said that we could get up and walk around and that would help. Doctor said no and made it seem like the baby would die if we didn’t obey, so we shut up and did what he said. (Can you tell I wasn’t pleased with him?) So the hours went by and I had Demerol and snoozed a little. At some point I turned to Dennis and said, “so, have you thought about adoption?” He kept telling me not to yell, but to breathe! Later I told him not to ever tell me not to yell in labor again. 🙂 We were in an ugly little green room because the good rooms were under construction at Chestnut Hill Hospital http://www.chhealthsystem.com/Pages/Home.aspx– we could hear the drills and saws next door throughout the day, in fact. So much for a birthing suite and mirror and yada yada yada. After 11.5 hours the doctor said that if something didn’t happen soon, we’d have to think about a C section. I am certain our son heard him, because almost immediately I had the urge to push that little guy out! Dennis told the doctor who didn’t really believe him and said he was on his way to get a Pepsi first. Surprise! Hey, the first timer actually knew what she was talking about. What does it feel like to want to push? Well, think of it this way – you’ve been doing it all your life – this is just bigger and more painful, but it feels the same, essentially.
Well, after 30 minutes, on my back (against my will) in the delivery room (due to construction) with my feet in the stirrups (doctor’s insistence he guilted me into) there was an episiotomy (because the doctor insisted – against my will) and there came our first little son (which the doctor had guessed all along would be a girl.) We actually got into a discussion and almost an argument about abortion while on the delivery table, though I don’t remember what was said now. That last half hour was painful but it didn’t seem so bad because I knew the baby was almost there and the endorphins kicked in. We didn’t know the gender, so that was exciting too. All in all it had been 12 hours and apparently other women down the hall were really jealous because theirs was longer.
He was amazing. He was ours. I remember looking at Dennis holding him while I was being “worked on.” 1 minute after midnight – after learning the gender – the next question was, “what day is it?” 🙂 Dark hair, blue eyes (that later turned to hazel.) David.
more to come….
Like most women who had children in the early 80’s, I signed us up for a Lamaze Childbirth class http://www.lamaze.org/Default.aspx?tabid=62 at the local hospital – in our case, Chestnut Hill Hospital. I was really glad I did because there were a lot of topics covered and I had opportunity to ask a lot of seemingly dumb questions. I enjoyed seeing the film of the birth also. Hey, I wanted to be ready!
We didn’t go crazy with it – we practiced the whole breathing thing a couple of times – it really didn’t seem like it took much to learn to count and breathe, but there were a couple different types to know. One week towards the end I felt really, really lousy. I ached everywhere. We went to the class and were supposed to get down on the floor to exercise. I told Dennis I was just going to observe because I felt terrible that night. Everyone else was down on the floor and after awhile the guy next to me said, “hey, how come SHE’s not exercising?” For a second I thought I was back in 11th grade phys ed class, except I had the knowledge that we WEREN’T being graded on this, hello?
Other than that, the only thing I remember is that the nurse/leader described labor as “discomfort.” Yeah, well, I wondered later on if we could sue her for that? To me, it would have been better to just know that it was going to hurt worse than anything ever before (or since) but that it would be temporary even if it felt like it would go on forever…..No discomfort here, ma’am. Just pain!
Here’s a magazine article I wrote referencing that experience, and others in our lives. http://reformedperspective.ca/index.php/resources/203-discomfort-or-pain?catid=63%253Asoup-and-buns
More later….
I learned the American version about the War of 1812, which basically revolved around the British impressing our sailors at sea, Britain’s interfering with our trade with France whom they were still fighting, and Britain’s help of the natiive Americans, which interfered with Americans moving westward. We declared war on them. We are told that if there had been telegraph or telephone it probably wouldn’t have even happened. We had a series of bloody battles here and there and they burned down the White House and and so forth, and eventually we all got tired of the bloodshed and settled and everyone went back to their original boundaries. By then the Brits weren’t fighting France anymore so the whole trade thing was a moot point.
Well, it sounds different when you visit Ft. George in Ontario and get the Canadian side of the story. There we discovered the truth (yes, the truth) that Jefferson thought it would be very easy to go into the British colony called Canada and just take over a bunch of it. In fact, there were a lot of people in Congress who really thought that the Canadians would be glad to be a part of the much superior USA instead of staying loyal to the crown. So the idea was to fight the Brits by invading across the Detroit and Niagara Rivers and they didn’t expect to meet with a lot of resistance.
Well, that was pretty ignorant thinking. The residents of Ontario fought like anyone would who was being invaded. Remember from my last post, this area was settled by people who wanted no part of the American Revolution back in the 1770’s, and in the early 1800’s and they still wanted no part of it, thank you. And how dare these Americans think that they could just come over and conquer! They repelled the advances, and after a couple of years of it, caused the Americans to stop trying. The boundaries were the same after all was done and people were killed.
Here was a further infraction that made Canadians hate the USA for what they did. Here they were, minding their own business and boom – there went cannonballs from the east side of the Niagara to the west. To this day, there is a 182 foot tall statue of British General Isaac Brock on the west side of the Niagara facing the USA, as if to say, “Don’t even try it!” http://www.warof1812.ca/brock.htm.
“Madison and his advisors believed that conquest of Canada would be easy and that economic coercion would force the British to come to terms by cutting off the food supply for their West Indies colonies. Furthermore, possession of Canada would be a valuable bargaining chip. Frontiersmen demanded the seizure of Canada not because they wanted the land (they had plenty), but because the British were thought to be arming the Indians and thereby blocking settlement of the west. Horsman concludes, “The idea of conquering Canada had been present since at least 1807 as a means of forcing England to change her policy at sea. The conquest of Canada was primarily a means of waging war, not a reason for starting it.” Hickey flatly states, “The desire to annex Canada did not bring on the war.” Brown (1964) concludes, “The purpose of the Canadian expedition was to serve negotiation not to annex Canada Burt, a leading Canadian scholar, agrees completely, noting that Foster, the British minister to Washington, also rejected the argument that annexation of Canada was a war goal” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origins_of_the_War_of_1812.
In any case, it should be easy to see why negative feelings towards the USA were a part of the Canadian fabric from the beginning, and for some people, still are.
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