The original title of my blog. I Should Have Known, basically telling how much fun it was to grow up being a baby boomer has at times sounded like maybe I wasn't having fun. Even though there were many trials and tribulations plus some not very good decisions it was still an awesome time to live through. Life wasn't any simpler then but goals were a lot easier to achieve.
By the start of the fourth year of my marriage to Dennis we had a race car that we were able to build and maintain on money we made from working on other people's cars. Building the new 3 bedroom tract house for $20,500.00 was actually cheaper than paying rent and it had a decent garage to keep Dennis happy. Since our original game plan was to build a race car, buy a house and then have a baby we were on tract to achieve all three.
When the idea struck me that I just might be pregnant I went to a doctor in Arlington where we had lived and I worked. He suggested upon telling me I was indeed going to have a baby that I go to a doctor closer to where we lived in Carrollton. That sounded logical and he provided me with several names of physicians he recommended. Perhaps it was logical but it was also terrifying. Terrifying because I grew up with a father who was a pharmacist and did not trust doctors. The only doctor I had ever been to was the local neurosurgeon in Muskogee since he was the only one my father trusted. Dad had provided me with birth control pills when I got married so going to a doctor, especially to have a baby, was cause for severe anxiety attacks.
I managed to get up the nerve to call the first one on the list and make an appointment. Of course I had heard all the stories about going to gynecologists which added to my terror. Arriving at his office was interesting in that I actually wondered if I was in the right place. It was in an office building far from any hospital and not one of those huge medical building places. The office itself was a small reception area with one rather stern looking lady in a white nurse's uniform and four or five chairs in the waiting room with no one else but me waiting.
In a matter of a few minutes I was ushered into Dr. Herndon's office. He was sitting at his desk in a suit and tie, stood and shook my hand calling me by my first name then offered me a chair. Remember all those sheets you usually have to fill out at a new doctor's office? Well, he asked me all the questions and filled them out himself - who does that! We talked for an hour sitting in his office and the most memorable thing he said to me that day was that if we did not like each other or if I did not trust him to cut off my head and sew it back on then he would help me find a doctor I trusted - who says that! I was at that point beginning to get a little less terrified.
Then I was sent into the exam room, the only exam room, and the stern looking nurse came in to give me instructions on putting on one of those horrible gowns. Have to admit that the exam was not as bad as I thought and Dr. Herndon had changed from the suit coat to a white lab coat. After the exam I got dressed and went back into his office for another chat. He determined that the baby was due on July 7th, I would see him every month for the first eight months and every week for the last month. Rules for being pregnant in Dr. Herndon's book were quite simple. No water skiing, no horseback riding and no motorcycle riding. Never having been water skiing I didn't have to worry about that, I questioned the horseback riding only to find out how bad they shake up your insides and it was not possible to deliver a baby if you were dead from a motorcycle accident.
I was beginning to have faith in this guy. Oh, he did tell me that when it came time to have the baby he would appreciate it if I would go into labor at night or on the weekend so it did not mess up his office hours. (It sounds funny now that a doctor would give you his home phone number to call after office hours.)
All the family was happy about the news. Alpha, Dennis's mom, made me some of the most gorgeous maternity clothes you have ever seen. We fixed up the nursery and I kept working until the first of June. There was some question along about March as to exactly when this baby was going to be born since I really did not need to wear maternity clothes by then. Dr. Herndon did not tell me how much weight I could gain and I found out pretty quickly that his idea was that I should not gain any weight. I got lectures each month about every pound I gained equaled an extra hour in labor, how hard it was to take the weight off later and that he wanted me to weigh my 125 pounds two weeks after delivery. His famous line was that women in concentration camps that lived on bread and water delivered perfectly healthy babies. That was a challenge.
Most women hate to hear this but I actually felt better pregnant than not. Life went on as usual with work, building race bodies and racing.
The weekend of my birthday the middle of June was the weekend of the Springnationals at Dallas International in Lewisville. The race car had had it's good and bad weekends before that one but we entered the race hoping for a good. one. It was a four day race and friends from all over the country were in town. When we were getting ready to load up on Sunday morning there was a slight kerflubawoozie. We had two five gallon jugs, one with water and one with gas in the trailer. Since it was important to use fresh gas for each race Dennis poured the contents of one of the jugs in the tank of the Mercury tow car. Whoops! It was the wrong jug, it was the water, not gas. Have you ever seen anyone shred a two inch thick shop manual because he couldn't figure out how to get the tank off the car to empty it? It was a fifteen minute fit of bad words and pages of the shop manual flying all over the garage while I laid under the car and found the right bolts to drop the tank. By some stroke of luck the car was running very well but in time trials there was something that was causing some problems. At night we had to take the engine out of the car and tighten some bolts somewhere in the transmission or clutch, I can't really remember which. The car qualified for the race on Sunday which was quite exciting.
Sunday came and we actually won the first round (Dennis was not the best of driver's so this was rare). In order to make the next round we loaded the car in the trailer, drove five miles home, pulled the engine and tightened the bolts, loaded the car back in the trailer, then back to the race track. Won the second round and did the same routine, then the third and the fourth round after going home and pulling the engine three times we not only won the race but set the national speed record for our class. Guess Dr. Herndon didn't know about pulling engines out of cars or pushing 1300 pound race cars around or I think he might have added that to his list of things not to do. By Sunday night I was no doubt tired but so happy to have won a race - finally. Does the picture below taken two weeks before the baby was due even look like I was pregnant? I should have known.
Dr. Herndon and I tried to figure out when I stopped taking birth control pills and when I got pregnant but didn't come up with anything positive dates. So he just had me come once a week starting the first of July. Every week after I went to the doctor Dennis's mom would call to find out the latest. As July dragged into August she began becoming impatient and would tell me how doctors let women die by not inducing labor. Wonder if you call that death by being overly pregnant? Since I had gained the utmost trust in Dr. Herndon it actually got to be funny. His philosophy was that the baby would come when it was ready and inducing labor was only a last resort.
I finally went into labor during the early morning hours of August the 30th but waited to call Dr. Herndon until 6:30 on that Monday morning with an apology that I was about to mess up his office hours. Off to Baylor Hospital where Wesley Allen was born about 11:30 in the morning. Even though the insurance papers state that I was pregnant for eleven months he was born a perfectly healthy eight pound little boy. To put a feather in my cap I weighed exactly 125 pounds when I went to see Dr. Herndon the next week. Guess the concentration camp diet worked.
Okay. We now have a nice house, a winning race car and a healthy baby. Time to settle into a normal life as a stay at home mom. Really!
Did I really think that? Boy, did I still have a lot to learn.
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