Childbirth with Missy...My style... (Yes, I was pretty STOOPID)

             Childbirth with Missy...My style... (Yes, I was pretty STOOPID)
Being pregnant was amazing, after I got done being sick.. I was totally fascinated with my belly and would watch the baby, rolling around and kicking, for hours on end.. I loved my fat little tummy.. I used to be incredibly impatient and as the weeks turned into months, I was ready to have my baby already.. Well, we all know you can't rush Mother Nature.. But then again, Mother Nature had never met me.. I never knew whether I was having a boy or girl until the Dr held the baby up and said, "You have a girl!".. With Missy, I was 3 1/2 weeks away from my due date when Dr Robinson informs me that I am only a few days away from going into labor.. Are you kidding me?? I was actually just days away from being a mommy?? Well, by all means lets get this show on the road.. With his warning to not waste a second if I thought there was any chance I was in labor, I went home.. Home was on the Douglas/Taney County line on Hwy 76.. If you are familiar at all with the area, you know how very far away I was from Springfield.. That was on Friday.. By Monday, I had waited nicely as long as I was going to.. So, I'm thinking that since I "understood" the dynamics of a pregnancy, that a soft jolt wouldn't hurt me or the baby.. (I can't believe I'm putting this out there for the world to read..) Anyway, I stood in the doorway of the bedroom, took a couple of long strides and launched myself like a rocket onto the bed.. It was a fairly easy launch and a pretty soft landing on my backside.. I bounced fairly gently, got up, and did it yet again.. One more time for luck and I settled down for the night.. Fast forward to Tuesday afternoon on June 19th, 1979.. By lunch I'm noticing that my little tummy ache has a distinct pattern to it.. Like every 40 minutes.. I was sure I had plenty of time, if it was in fact labor, but I called my Dr just to make sure.. He tells me to get my butt up there.. RIGHT NOW!! That's hard to do when you are your only ride.. Haying and milking put me at the bottom of the importance list and I was on my own for just an hour maybe.. I mean my pains were pretty far apart.. I had plenty of time.. So, as I wait for Missy's dad to get home from work I decide to clean off the front seat so we could leave immediately.. As I leaned in the window of my car to get my keys, all hell broke loose.. I was talking to my mother-in-law as I was standing there and I just yelped.. My water had broken and I was immediately launched into hard labor.. By that, I mean that my pains were maybe 30-45 seconds apart at the most.. Even as I stood there with water puddling on the sidewalk, it still didn't make sense that this baby was going to be in that big of a hurry.. Wrong answer!! To be fair, we both thought I still had plenty of time and we knew that Missy's dad would be there very soon to take me.. She did not mean it the way it may have sounded, and when she said, "You picked a fine time to go into labor.", I totally understood what she meant.. The timing could not have been any worse.. If you have ever been on a dairy farm you understand how critical milking on time is.. If she had taken me, the cows would have been hours late being milked.. That can devastate a healthy herd for a while in a lot of very different ways.. So, she would run down to the barn, try to get the cows ready, then run back to the house to check on me.. She is not the bad guy here.. Just part of the story.. She never dreamed that this baby was not going to wait 30 minutes.. It didn't take very many minutes before I knew I didn't have that kind of time.. On her second trip back to the house I told her I had called my Aunt June, who lived about 20 minutes away, and that she was on her way to get me.. LaQuita loaded me in the truck and like a NASCAR racer (I'm not kidding one bit!) she flew up the hwy to meet her and pass me off.. Then the race was really on down 76 Hwy, headed toward GoodHope and Springfield.. We never even made it through GoodHope.. She stopped at a country store to call an ambulance.. Well, now we have to head toward Ava to meet them.. Halfway to Ava we meet up and I bailed out of her car, onto the cot, and we were off again.. Lights and sirens blaring, a detour to Mansfield, and a baby trying to be born in the back of that ambulance made for some very surreal moments.. All I can remember, aside from the absolute fear and unimaginable pain, is the massive chest on the lady taking care of me in the back.. All joking aside, she held me tight through every second of every pain, and I felt safe nestled in her breasts.. To this day, a hug from a big chested woman brings comfort.. Weird I know.. By now it has been almost two hours of this, and I have managed to NOT push, even though I was crowning.. I was too afraid to and determined to make it to the hospital....any hospital.. A flurry of activity was under way, and the instant they got me inside at Mansfield Tri-County, they were telling me to push.. I was telling them that one of my stirrups kept collapsing which they didn't seem to care much about.. It was kind of making me mad.. 20 minutes later, still fussing through relentless pain about the stirrup, I was told to push or have a C-section.. My choice.. A scare tactic that worked well.. Three pushes later and I watched as they turned the baby around to see what we had.. I had a girl!!! I actually had a girl!! I also had every family member waiting in Springfield for us to arrive.. Obviously that didn't happen.. My actions probably contributed to the scariest few hours of my life.. Not to mention how incredibly stupid they were.. And I wonder why Missy is so impatient.... DUH!!