The day started at about 3:00 am. I awoke with the worst backache I had ever had. I didn't think it terribly unusual...after all, I was nine months pregnant! I sat up and watched some old movie. John Wayne was in it. That's all I remember.

Nervous and achey all day, I seemed to move through it like I was marching through jello. Everything seemed to be moving at super slo-mo. OEH had plans later that afternoon to be outside all day at Snow Belt Memorial Park playing french horn in the Quaint Village Band's Flag Day Concert. As this was before the days of cell phones, I would have no way to contact him if Something Big happened. I went with him. It was over 90 degrees out. I was as big as a house, or so I thought. (Actually I weighed less at 39 weeks gestation in 1987 than I do right now, but that's another post.)

So I went,and sat on any available surface--the steps of the memorial building, the grass under a tree. The older women who were there to hear the concert were very solicitous of me, helping me to get up and stand when my legs started to go numb, offering me drinks of water, one even rubbed my back for me--a stranger offering me comfort in the park where her dead husband lay!

When the concert was finally over, we left and went home--stopping at a drive-through first so I could have something to eat. Little did I know that those chicken nuggets would be the last uninterruped meal I would eat for a long, long, time. When finally it was clear that we needed to go to the hospital, we just got in the car to go. There were no friends to call, nobody had any plans to come and stay with us. We figured we'd just call our parents after the baby was born.

Back in those dark ages, pregnant moms were given the "full prep". If you don't know what that means, ask your mother. Also, these were before the days of routine epidural. This was drug-free, grit your teeth, gut it out childbirth! I labored very slowly. Finally it came time to push, and I thought I was home free.

Three hours of pushing later, my son was born at 3:34 am on June 15. I was barely 24 years old. I had been laboring at the hospital since 7:00 pm. In all of that time, my husband never left my side, not even to pee. It was the closest I had ever felt to him, trumping even our wedding day.

The cord was loosely wrapped around my son's neck, so he was rushed across the room for a few minutes, while he was Apgar tested and checked out. When finally he was handed to me, it was like I was looking at my own face for the very first time. I had never, ever seen a face that looked even remotely like mine. It was magic.

Today my son is 19 years old. The past year has been the hardest of our relationship--harder than the terrible two's. But having him with us is still magic--the smoke and mirrors are a little more elaborate is all.

In a couple of hours were are going to go have sushi to celebrate. This is a happy day for me--the day I became a Mom.