Todd Turns 34!

Yik

es! Our kids are getting to the age where I have to stop and figure out how old they really are! All our children were born in odd-number years, so once they all have their birthdays, they are either all odd or all even numbers. This is an even year.

Here sits Todd with the birthday cake his wife, Sue, (in the background) made with the help of their six-year old Laura. They also have another daughter, Abby, who is 2 1/2, and are expecting a boy on August 3.

But long before Todd was a husband and father he was our second baby. We had wanted our first two children two years apart, and our first son, Roy, was 2 years and 2 1/2 months old when Todd was born June 13, 1975. I have a picture in my mind of Roy sitting outside the back door on the old well, and thinking how lonely he looked, sitting there all by himself. It made me glad we were having another baby! And, of course, in those days, we did not know if it was a boy or a girl.

Like my other pregnancies, I did not have morning sickness. But my pregnancy with Todd was a little different in that I seemed to have so many of the Braxton-Hicks contractions. They seemed to exhaust me in the last months. I also gained all my weight in the first 6 months, and none in the last two--Todd was born about a month early. He was due on July 9, but was born June 13. There were no routine sonograms done then, either, to determine if we had goofed a month on the due date. I don't think we did. We had taken some Lamaze childbirth classes, too, in preparation for our second childbirth experience.

Thursday night, June 12, I had worked out in the garden, crawling around on my hands and knees, pulling weeds or whatever. About 10:40 that night, I got up from a chair in the kitchen and whoosh! My water had broken with a big splash! I called the doctor and talked to his nurse, and she said I would probably go into labor within 48 hours. I told her I had been planning to wash my hair and get a bath, and she said, "Honey, get a shower, but I wouldn't wash my hair!" So, that's what I did. About 11:30, when I was getting ready for bed, I noticed a slight contraction, and then I had some bloody show, too. This time when we called the dr. the nurse told us to go to the hospital. We called Martha to come stay with Roy, who was in bed sleeping and didn't know anything about what was going on!

I remember telling Ken, "Our baby will be born on Friday the 13th! I am going back to bed!!" As if that would have made any difference....

Off we went to the hospital. The contractions were getting stronger. Walking into the hospital, I had to stop during a contraction because I felt such pressure in my bowels! Ken said, "It must be close, because we learned at those classes that that is something that happens near delivery! How right he was! When the nurse examined me in the labor room, they called the doctor to come from Brockway for the delivery (about 10 miles). We probably got to the hospital between 12:30 and 1:00 AM. When Dr. Devlin arrived, I was in the delivery room, and he explained to me that my baby was in the breech position and he would have to put me to sleep to deliver the baby. He knew that I had taken classes and wanted to be awake for the delivery. At that point, all I could say was "How soon?" I welcomed going off into oblivion for a while!

Todd Franklyn Grady was born at 1:34 AM on Friday, June 13. I had had less than 2 hours of labor contractions. He weighed 7 pounds 5 ounces and was the biggest of all four of our babies. He is still the biggest! Ken had chosen Roy's first name, so I chose Todd's first name. I had always liked the name, and I think it had some connection with Abraham Lincoln's sons?? Not sure about that one. His middle name came from Frank Porter, a worker who had been in our part when I was in grade school. I was very fond of him, and the y in the spelling is also the way his name was spelled.

So we had a second boy. His first day of life was rather miserable for him, because he did not like to be moved and would cry in a high-pitched screech when I unbundled him to count his toes, etc.! He was battered up from the delivery. When the doctor visited later in the morning, he said that if Todd had been head first, he didn't think he would have made it to the hospital for the delivery, and maybe I would not have either!

We began life with our two little boys. Todd grew and gained weight like crazy on an exclusive breast-milk diet for the first four months. I ate like crazy, but still got down to about 135 or so very easily.

Todd is the tallest of our children. I say he must have grabbed all the tall genes off both sides of the family tree, because neither of our families have any exceptionally tall people in them. Todd's namesake, Frank Porter, is 6'4", so maybe he was taking after him!! When Todd was still 12, he grew into size 12 shoes.

Yes, indeed, all our children are very special and unique, and I love to write about them and remember all these things!