Happy Birthday Lovely Daughter

First of all a couple of housekeeping things:

Thanks to all of you for your comments on my yesterday’s post. I was anticipating opening a bag of worms and being cyber-beaten, but that didn’t happen. The only one I got a “rise” out of was the blogger it was aimed at. Said blogger tried very hard to make me feel guilty – but guess what? (Puts hands to mouth to yell loudly) IT DIDN’T WORK!! I feel very strongly about what I wrote and I could tell that those of you who commented did too. Thanks again.

For faygo10@hotmail.com. I sent you an email at this address and it came back. You can email me directly at LenaSwenson@gmail.com. I look forward to hearing from you.


Now down to the important business:

Today is Lovely Daughter’s birthday. Go and send her some birthday greetings. I won’t tell you how old she is – I’ll leave that up to her. But I CAN tell you that the years have gone by entirely too fast. She’s supposed to still be a leetle girl with all her blond curly hair and sweet smile.

I had a very stressful summer that summer so long ago that I was pregnant. We moved into our new house in December and the following summer we were flooded. We had 17 inches of rain in three days, and live along a river, so you know what that means. The water just kept coming and coming and coming. We built an earthen dike and the water just came right over the top. We managed to keep the water out of the basement, and finally had to give up and move out. We spent the 4th of July weekend cleaning up the dirt and silt and stink that were left behind. I was four months pregnant at that time.

When I was five months pregnant my father died very suddenly. He was not an old man by any means, but had been in the hospital for some minor surgery and was due to get out the morning he died. I received a phone call about 6:00 a.m. from a nurse telling me I better get there quickly because he had taken a very bad turn. By the time my mother and I got there he was gone.

When I was 7 ½ months pregnant Ole fell through the roof of the shop he was building and broke his back in three places. He had taken an afternoon off from his job to work on this building and try to get it enclosed before the winter weather came, so he was home alone, just he and our two dogs. He lay on the ground for several hours and then decided no one was going to come to rescue him so he’d have to do something on his own. Somehow he managed to crawl up to the house, reached the phone and called me at work. He should have called an ambulance, but I guess that thought never crossed his mind. When I got there he somehow got into the car and I rushed him to the ER where he was hospitalized for a week or so, put in a back brace and sent home. I guess the breaks were such that he could be up and carefully moving around as long as he wore the brace, but could not lift anything heavier than a fork.

By this time I was going to the doctor on a weekly basis. My appointments were scheduled for Friday mornings. On November 14th I saw the doctor for the weekly exam and as I left he said, “See you next week.” Lovely Daughter’s due date was originally December 5 but somehow I knew that wasn’t going to happen. Maybe because I had felt like I was walking around with her arm hanging out for the previous week. My response was, “Nope – I’ll be in the hospital before that.”

As I left work that afternoon headed for a relaxing weekend (ha, ha) my friends wished me well and also said, “See you Monday.” My response – “Nope, don’t think I’ll be here. I think this baby is coming this weekend.” Of course everybody poopooed that idea, but Monday morning I had to call them and tell them I wouldn’t be in because I had become a mom!

Lovely Daughter was born three weeks early to the tune of 5 lbs. 5 oz. Just a very little wee one. Of course she ended up being jaundiced so had to go under the lights and it took almost a week before that got straightened out. By this time she was down to 4 lbs. 5 oz. And they wouldn’t let me take her home until she showed significant signs of gaining weight. This was back in the days when they didn’t send you home after a day and a half. Lovely Daughter and I were in the hospital for 6 days!! I thought I was going to go nuts. I felt great and had nothing to do. I couldn’t even have my baby other than to feed her because they wanted to keep her under the lights as much as possible.

When the doctor finally let us go home she weight in at 4lbs. 15 oz. I received instructions that she was to be awakened every three hours round the clock to be fed until she was up to 6 lbs. I knew that this would all fall on me since Ole wasn’t supposed to lift anything heavier than a fork. So there I went – home with a new baby that had to be fed every three hours and a husband in a back brace. Part of the problem was that her sucking reflex hadn’t developed as it should have, she wasn’t strong enough to suck for very long, so you had to kind of milk the nipple into her mouth and feeding her took forever. By the time I’d get all the formula down and her back to sleep it was almost time to wake her again for another feeding. Oh, I remember how terribly tired I was. It was so great when Ole finally reached a point where he could hold her in his lap and feed her without having to lift her.

And then she grew, and she grew and the years went by. All you mothers know how that is. To you young mothers with little ones: I know you get frustrated at times, and tired, but enjoy all those moments with your little ones as much as possible because they just don’t last long enough.

Happy Birthday Lovely Daughter!! May you always have happiness.

I remember when you were little,
I know when you were small.
I recall the thoughts I had then,
'Daughters, The Best Of All',
I've loved you very dearly,
as you've traveled on life's way.
Now I'm happy love has come to stay.

I know we've had our squabbles,
sometimes we've both shed tears.
But now I honestly believe that
we're closer with the years.
Lovely Daughter Of Mine
for you I can wish only joy,
And let me say,
I'm glad you weren't a boy!