Roy, our first born, turns 36 tomorrow, March 30. It hardly seems possible that so many years have passed! I took this picture yesterday at the auction that he helped with for his in-laws, Terry and Nancy Boop.
Ken and I had figured we wanted our first child around the time of our second wedding anniversary. By early August, 1972, we had hopes. That was before the days of home pregnancy tests. People used to talk about the rabbit tests, but I think that was even old-fashioned in 1972! We went to see good ole Dr. Devlin on Ken's birthday, September 18, and he confirmed it for us and gave us a due date of April 18. We were very excited, and kept the secret for a little while, probably til I was about 3 months.
I quit my job at the bank in January, and spent the time at home in great expectation! I remember thinking early on that I should pray for my baby, and it came to me that I wanted to pray that our baby would bring joy to our hearts. But, somehow, that seemed to have a bit of selfishness in it, and I finally decided to pray that our baby would bring joy to God's heart, and then I knew that he/she would bring joy to our hearts, too!
We didn't have a lot of money, and didn't have a lot of things for our new baby, but we had some essentials. Ken made a wooden cradle for downstairs use, and we had a bassinet that my mom had bought for Randy, my nephew, 6 months prior, and a crib for upstairs. My coworkers bought me a nice baby gift. In the middle of March, Ken started at new factory job at Rockwell in DuBois. Our life was changing!
If there were sonograms in those days, we did not know about them. We did not find out what any of our babies were ahead of time. My pregnancy was pretty typical. I did not have morning sickness at all (and didn't with any of the next three, either!) I did have some heartburn with Roy that I didn't seem to have with the next three. I gained about 15 to 20 pounds and was generally healthy and felt pretty good.
Right about 10 days before Roy was born, I had a drs. appointment and he told me that my baby had dropped, which meant that its head was engaged. When I told Martha that, she said, "Oh, that means you will go in 10 days!" It turns out that she was pretty close!
Ken's brother Don and his wife Jane, had had their 5th child on Mar. 6, and on March 29, I went over to her house so she could show me how to bathe a baby. It was fun. I had read books about pregnancy and babies, but we didn't have things like childbirth classes or Lamaze classes. I needed some hand-on instruction and Jane was quite willing to teach me! It was also Jane's birthday, and a whole bunch of her sisters came and brought food for lunch for everybody. My due date was still about three weeks away.
The next day was Friday. Ken went to work real early in the morning. I can't remember exactly what my plans for the day were, but around 9 AM, I began to notice that I was having strange contractions. I didn't think they were labor contractions, because they didn't hurt, they just felt like a tightening. In novels, when the woman goes into labor, she usually yells with the first "pain" and eveyone comes running. Not so in real life! I was perplexed at what it was all about and decided to begin timing them. I found out they were very regular. Interestingly enough, I was playing the piano, and I remember playing The Burning of Rome, a long complicated song with lots of sections, and seeing if I could get through this section without a contraction coming again! Do you think this helped Roy to be the musical person that he turned out to be??!!??
Around 11 o'clock of so, I called the dr. and talked to his nurse. Their procedure was that we would go into the drs. office to get examined, and the nurse would determine if I was in labor or not. That sounded like good news to me because I sure wasn't sure if this was the real thing or not. She said, "I think you had better call your husband home from work, and have him bring you in." By the time I got Ken home from work, and we went to Brockway, these strange contractions were beginning to hurt! Nurse Josephine confirmed that I was indeed in labor, and she told me I would probably have my baby about suppertime. Off to DuBois the two of us went. Ken called Jane from the hospital to say that we were there, but nobody else in the family knew.
It seemed like a long afternoon, but finally I went to the delivery room. I was happy for the general anesthesia! At 5 p.m., with the help of forceps, Roy Joseph Grady was born into the world (remember Josephine's suppertime prediction?) weighing 6 pounds, 3 ounces. By the time I came our of anesthetic, I was back in my room with Ken there beside me, waiting for me to wake up. He told me we had a boy! I said, "We had a boy, kiss me!" And then, "We had a boy, kiss me again!" I remember him telling me that he would get some of that anesthetic in him and maybe get sleepy!
So, we had our first baby. He was born on what would have been my dad'd 66th birhtday. (Daddy had died in 1970, three years prior) And isn't it a little bit crazy that it was an 8 hour, 9-to-5 labor?
One regret that I have is that we have no pictures of us being proud new parents taken at the hospital bed with our new little one. Roy was a tiny little guy, especially compared to his big cousin, Teresa, who was 3 weeks older, but he soon grew and we learned how to be parents. When he was 6 months old, Leona Shadle began sending us her son Charles' outgrown clothes, which she did for years and years! We really appreciated getting them, and Charles and Roy have been good friends.
Motherhood was a very special experience for me, a young 20-year old. I always thought you had children because it was a thing you were supposed to do, and I never had a lot of interest in other people's babies. I was so totally thrilled with how wrapped up I was in this little bundle. Every little thing that he learned was so special to me! When he discovered his hands, when he rolled over, when he got his first two teeth, when he did push-ups when he was learning to crawl, when he took his first few steps--all these things were a tremendous source of pride to me! Even though there were a few tough times, they did not seem very significant compared with my pride in him.
Now, almost 36 years later, I am still enormously proud of him and our other children. Seeing him yesterday selling on the auction block I wanted to yell, "That's my son!", but of course, I didn't! I just smiled and smiled...
