April 11, 2005 – Our Beautiful Impetuous Daughter Burst Into the World

April 11, 2005 – Our Beautiful Impetuous Daughter Burst Into the World

Our daughter ME had turned three in 1971. She was talking up a storm. IM and I had decided it was time to add another little one to the family. Our finances were sufficient to do so. And, we had been looking at a new home development being offered by Centennial Homes at the easternmost edge of Plano on a side street off Farm-to-Market Road 544—the one that led to Lake Lavon. The four-bedroom house was a little over $20,000 and the monthly payment on a 30-year loan was about what we were paying for rent at the Tower Apartment. We wouldn’t make the move until after our new bundle of joy came. Besides the house wasn’t even built yet.

As 1971 progressed and IM grew big with child, we thought it was time to put ME into day care one or two days a week for a half day. ME has always been a very gregarious person who enjoys being around others but the apartment complex had few children of her age she could play with. The solution came in the form of Children’s World, a preschool that was right next door to the bank building where I worked in Richardson. IM and I visited the school with ME and as soon as we walked in the door, ME saw the kids and ran off to be with them as we sat and talked with the school principle about enrolling her for two days a week. After completing the paperwork and getting the financial details straightened out, we had to drag ME away from her newfound playmates. ME was not the sort of kid who would throw a tantrum but she would sulk.

This all began right after her third birthday in February. Her first day in preschool started the next week. I dropped her off in the morning and took her home at lunch on Tuesday and Thursday. On days when IM had her doctor visits, I would drop ME off at school and return to take IM to her appointment. The doctor’s office comprised a practice of four general practitioners who cared for most everyone in Plano. You had to go to Richardson to find another practice or to find a specialist such as a pediatrician, podiatrist, etc. Plano was in dire need of more medical services and the need was increasing as the population steadily grew.

We had named our new bundle of joy, RD, after Scotland’s venerated poet and my mother’s middle name. She had been well planned, She was due in September and as the time neared, we arranged for my mother to fly to Plano from El Paso to be with us when RD made her debut. IM and I had both known what the procedure was for preparing for the hospital, reading the warning signs of approaching birth, and getting to the hospital with plenty of time to enable baby and mother to get through the drawn out process of labor. I got the call from IM just around 3:00 PM that contractions were coming closer together and that I should come home. I alerted everyone at work that I was taking the rest of the day off and taking my wife to the hospital. I had told IM to call her doctor and tell him we were heading for the hospital, but when I arrived home she said her doctor had requested her to come to his office, which we did.

I gathered ME and IM, put all IM’s belongings for the hospital in the car and off we went to the doctor’s office. By now, the contractions were coming pretty steady and gaining in intensity and both IM and I were getting concerned. We explain the urgency to the nurses as we checked into the doctor’s office and the nurse immediately placed IM in one of the examination rooms. With ME in my arms, I pace about the waiting room waiting for the doctor to let me take IM on to Richardson General Hospital a few exits south of Plano on Highway 75. It seemed like the wait went on for hours. It was getting close to 4:00 PM, about an hour after I got the call from IM to come home. The next thing that happened was the nurse rushed out of the room where IM had been taken and returned hurriedly with the doctor in tow. By now, I had gotten anxious but I kept myself calm so as not to alarm ME who has been resting on my shoulder sucking her thumb.

Within minutes of the doctor going into the room, he emerged to tell me an ambulance had been called to take IM to Richardson General. My anxiety spiked and ME sensed it. I calmed her down as I got myself under control and tried to make my way to the examining room where IM was waiting. The nurse blocked my way and told me I’d be in the way and that I should get ready to drive to the hospital. Within minutes, I heard the sound of the ambulance siren and made my way with ME to the parking lot of the doctor’s office just in time to see the ambulance attendant and driver rush a gurney into the office and emerge minutes later with IM. I tried to catch a glimpse of her, as she was loaded into the back of the ambulance, but could not. The back of the ambulance closed and it pulled out of the parking lot and onto FM 544 headed for Highway 75. I strapped ME into her child seat and jumped into the car and began following the ambulance. It beat me to the 75 on ramp but I managed to catch up with it as we made our way down 75 toward the hospital. I got to the packing lot of the hospital after the Ambulance had made it to the emergency entrance. I grabbed ME and IM’s hospital suitcase and rushed into the hospital entrance and to the registration desk. I explained that IM has just arrived by Ambulance.

Within a half hour of our arrival at the hospital the doctor found ME and me in the waiting room and explained that IM delivered an eight-pound, nineteen-inch tall baby girl. Both mother and baby were doing well and we would be able to visit both in a short time. I shake the doctor’s hand and hug ME with joy and relief. I had never felt so completely out of control and helpless in my life. I smiled at ME who had a look of anxious concern in her beautiful eyes. I told her she had a new baby sister and she smiled.

Later when we were allowed to visit IM, we got the story from her point of view. Her doctor had ignored her symptoms presuming that he had plenty of time before the baby would come. IM sitting in the examining room at his office going through full labor finally opened the door and demanded to see a nurse. When the nurse saw her condition, she immediately summoned the doctor who upon seeing IM’s state turned to the nurse and asked if she had ever assisted a delivery. Her reply was shock and fear at which point, the doctor opted to call the ambulance. As the ambulance left the office for the hospital somewhere just after getting onto Highway 75, IM said her water broke and the baby started coming. The attendant wanted to stop and deliver the baby but the driver, like the nurse, was overtaken with fear and panic and wanted to get to the hospital. As the ambulance pulled up to the emergency room, a waiting nurse took charge, wheeled IM into the delivery room and within minutes RD had made her appearance, all eight pounds nineteen inches of her. Thus we became the foursome we’ve been ever since.