NO GIRL !

 

The sun was thinking about meeting it’s new day over San Antonio July 24th just as my 2nd child was trying to greet the world for the first time. With my 2-year-old son in the back seat of the Audi, my hubby was speeding as fast as the car could take us and I was holding that baby inside of me with all my might. At one point I glanced at the speedometer….big mistake! The needle was as high as it could go and I was soooo scared that I literally felt NONE of the labor pains. I’d had exactly 2 contractions before that urge came upon me of wanting to start to push, so during this long drive from Randolph AFB to Wilford Hall Medical Center at Lackland AFB, I was using all of my strength to hold that baby inside of me! It wasn’t supposed to happen this fast….I was told that labor would be much longer. After those 2 ONLY contractions, knowing that we had a 40-minute drive to the hospital, I’d told my husband that we’d have to have the baby at home. He wasn’t having none of this! He strapped the kid in the carseat, buckled me into the frontseat….and zoomed off like a bat outa you-know-where! Luckily it was before 6:00 a.m. & there was no traffic, although I was praying for a police escort, because we made that 40-minute drive in 25-minutes.

The moment we arrived at the E.R., the paramedics rushed out of the hospital with a stretcher & I couldn’t contain the pushing any longer; I just had to let go. They helped me out of the car and onto the stretcher and were running with me through the emergency room, but we didn’t make it very far. I gave birth in the hallway in front of approximately 40 onlookers! Then they gave me some news that I DID NOT WANT TO HEAR: I had a daughter! I very emphatically exclaimed, in front of everyone, “A girl! But I don’t want any girls….I plan to have 6 boys!!!” Surely there was some mistake. Boys ran in my family and in my husband’s family. I wasn’t prepared for this, and I WAS MAD! I heard several gasps from ‘the audience’.

I was swiftly whisked away in one direction while my daughter was taken into another room to be cleaned. While I was in the recovery room awaiting my baby girl to be brought to me, I was shocked when an Air Force psychiatrist came to talk to me. Apparently the medical staff had alerted the psychiatrics because they were worried that I was going to reject my newborn! When he left, a 2nd psychiatrist came in to ask another set of questions. After an hour of questioning by 2 USAF psychiatrists, my baby girl was finally brought to me….later I found out that the medics and nurses were worried that I’d not want her or something. My goodness, I’m not an animal in the wild that eats it’s young if’n it’s not satisfactory! Once the nurse laid that little 8-pound bundle in my arms and I gazed into her cornflower-blue eyes, I fell instantly in love and have been ever since….for the last 29 years and counting!