Mmmm and I have often said that the happiest day of our lives was the day Kay was born. We had gone through so much and had so many disappointments. When I was pregnant I counted every calorie and every gram of protein and calcium and so forth. We could hardly wait until she was born. Now I am going to tell you more than you want to know.

During the summer my sister in Japan lost her baby girl, Marlene, because of the RH factor in our blood. I went to see our kindly old family doctor. He had already seen me through five pregnancies that ended in disappointment. He reassured me and said that we would be starting titer counts soon and all would be well. My mother told me not to accumulate baby clothes because it is too hard to have all those things if something should go wrong. My sister Eunice had sent me a package of nice soft used diapers which were wonderful, but we had nothing else. My friends at church had planned a shower for me on the following Monday.

Saturday I woke with some contractions but I had contractions all through my pregnancy so I didn’t think much of it. I am surprised I didn’t have her on the escalator at Buffum’s the previous day. I showered and washed my hair and put it up. . .I was going to look lovely for this child. We called the doctor and he suggested we go to the hospital but since it was my first full term pregnancy he said it might be a while. I was so happy to be going into the front door of the hospital instead of the emergency entrance. It was about 11:30 or so. I got settled in the labor room, the nurse came in to check me and her eyes opened wide and she said, “You’re ready!”

They called the doctor, had Mark say “good-bye” as they all stood around. I was a little worried about that. . .did that mean I wasn’t coming back? They wheeled me into the delivery room. They had to take my curlers out because they were metal and I looked, not like a Madonna, but more like a drowned rat. A brief time later, about six minutes to one, Dr. Edwards said, “You have a beautiful baby girl.” I said, “I’ll bet you say that to all the women,” and the nurse said, “No, he doesn’t.” I said, “I would love to see Mark’s face when you tell him.” Dr. Edwards said, “Why don’t you tell him?” and I did. He was delighted and then went off to work. I wanted to see her, and hold her and count her fingers and toes, but they told me I needed to sleep so I didn’t get to really see her until the next morning. She was beautiful and has been a Mary Poppins kind of child ever since. . .practically perfect in every way.

Happy Birthday, honey.

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