March 27, 2005 – Birth of a Baby in The Late 1960s

March 27, 2005 – Birth of a Baby in The Late 1960s

In the winter of 1968 my wife “IM” and I welcomed our oldest daughter, “ME,” into our lives and we immediately learned what being parents meant, a 24-hour vigil for a tiny eight-pound bundle that required continuous attention. She came into the world in the most tumultuous times of the 20th Century. The country was bitterly divided over the Viet Nam War, The Civil Rights Movement had become a social juggernaut that would remake the social order of the South as well as most of America, and the nation was rushing toward a major economic change—spending on the military would begin to decline and a large percentage of the workforce—of which I was a part—that relied on government contracts would be looking for jobs.

We were a conventional family, father off to work every day, stay-at-home mom taking care of the newborn. “ME” was born in Prince George General Hospital in Cheverly Maryland on a Thursday in February. I had gotten a call from “IM” who had spent the day with our neighbor “JC” a gracious Brit who had married “AC”, an ex-Air Force enlisted man, while he was stationed in the UK. “AC” had gotten work at the Marriott Corp. and had risen into the management ranks. The couple had two boys. “IM” had called me at work—I was employed as a computer technician by Bendix Field Engineering Service and stationed at Goddard Space Flight Center on the Washington DC Beltway in Greenbelt, Maryland—around 3:00 PM Wednesday afternoon to tell me that her contractions were coming five minutes apart and that the doctor had said she should get to the hospital.

I drove home in a panic, chain-smoking Marlboros every mile of the way until I pulled into the parking lot of the Landover Garden Apartments where we lived. “JC” had brought “IM”s suitcase and other things she would need at the hospital down to her apartment on the ground floor. We lived on the second floor of the same block of apartments. As I came into the parking lot I pull into a space in front of “JCs” unit. Coming out of “JC”s apartment was “IM” followed by “JC” with her suitcase and overnight case. We loaded the car and I thanked “JC” profusely for all the help she had been and I headed for the hospital, slowly now with my fragile cargo. I had stopped smoking and was concentrating on getting us through the evening commute traffic. We made the trip in under 15 minutes and “IM” seemed to be handling the contractions without much distress. I pulled up in front of the hospital, found a wheelchair and wheeled her into the reception area. I parked “IM” at the reception desk and ran back for her belongings, which I left beside her as I made one final trip outside to park the car. It was going to be a long night and it wasn’t even 5:00 PM.

The admissions process seemed to take forever but we eventually got through and “IM” was wheeled up to the maternity ward. I kissed her once before she left and I wouldn’t see her again until after the birth. The view of child bearing back then was doctors and nurses handled the birthing process. The mother did what she was told and the husband chain-smoked in the waiting room, which was what I did and where I did it. As our first daughter came into the world, the U.S. Marines were fighting a bloody battle to retake the city of Hué from North Vietnamese units that swept into the city two weeks earlier. And the city of Saigon was under siege by a determined Vieg Cong insurgency. In Grenoble France, the ABC Television Network was broadcasting in color the Winter Olympics, the first time ever around the world.

Unknown to me as I wandered back and forth between the waiting room and the glass-enclosed nursery where each newborn baby was brought, “IM” and “ME” were going through hours of labor in their delicate dance of birth. As Wednesday’s midnight hour neared and prepared to give way to Thursday, I was beginning to grow anxious. The long hours of not knowing and no information as to what was going on was wearing on my spirit. I gave up the waiting room and posted myself outside the nursery and waited another hour before I saw a newborn being brought into the room all swaddled tightly in a white receiving blanket. My heart surged as I stood watching the new arrival being worked on by the nursery staff. My attention was interrupted by the sound of an approaching gurney and as I turned in the direction of the sound, I saw my exhausted wife “IM” being wheeled from delivery room to maternity ward. The gurney stopped where I was standing and I gave my wife a hug and kiss as the nursery staff brought “ME” over to the window for both of us to see.

The hospital staff interrupted the brief first reunion of our new family. “IM” and I said our goodbyes and we waved to our newly arrived daughter “ME”. I would remain at the window watching the nursery staff continue their work on the new addition to our family. “IM” would continue to the maternity ward where she would be prepared to receive and begin feeding our new daughter. I would wait for “IM’s” doctor to tell me the delivery was normal, that our new baby was fine, how much she weighed, and how long she was, that “IM” was fine and had no complications during the birth, that she would be able to leave in a couple of days. By the time he finished our brief conversation in the waiting room where he took me after coming out of the delivery room in his scrubs, I finally let out a sigh of relief. I would have to wait until the following day before I had a chance to hold our daughter. Such was the manner of childbirth in the late 1960s.