Birthing Story #1 - Kelly Nicole Jones

I'm not sure what happened to "Birthing Story #1 - Kelly Nicole Jones"...so here it is!

Mickey and I got married young.  We were both 21.  He was still in college and working a more than full time part-time job.  Knowing we would both have to provide for our living expenses, I had quit college and was working the night shift at a local factory.  We lived in Batesville in married student housing on Arkansas College's campus.  Mickey worked as a night computer operator in Newport at a local factory.  When we got married, Mickey was entering his Junior year as a Data Processing and Mathematics Major.  We enjoyed our life together, had a lot of friends and family close by.  I'm not sure what our thought process was, but we made the decision that we wanted a baby and we didn't want to wait until it was sensible.

I think I called him from a pay phone at work to tell him the news.  I was indeed pregnant and due at the end of April - about the time he would be graduating from college.

I worked throughout my pregnancy.  I was a calibrator and tester for hot water heater controls.  The job was not as hard for some of us who were younger and we were fast.  Management recognized that we could do the job and pretty much left us alone as long as we didn't get QC rejects.  I was standing over a hot tank of water, lifting trays of hot water heater controls, moving to a tester, pushing and pulling racks of controls around and when my belly got big enough, they left me on the tester.  It was demanding physically.  But I was happy and healthy.

We decided to move in with my parents the first of April.  We knew that I was due about the time Mickey would graduate and we couldn't stay in married student housing after that.  We also knew that we would be moving somewhere else and couldn't sign a lease or get another place to live for that month.  My parents were happy to have us (or at least acted as though they were).

On April 14, Mickey went to school, as expected and Mom went out of town to see her parents.  I woke up and could not straighten up.  I was in tremendous pain.  It didn't seem like labor because it was constant.  I was still two weeks away from my due date.  This was my first child and everyone knows first children don't come early...in fact, we'd been told to expect it to be up to two weeks late.  The pain was unbearable and so I made the call to my sister, Jo.  She could come and get me and take me to the doctor.

She was surprised to see me walking bent over and feeling so sick.  We decided to just go to my doctor's office.  When we got there, I was miserable! I couldn't sit still.  Jo took matters into her own hands.  She told the office girl that if he couldn't see me NOW, she would take me to the ER and he would have to leave his patients to come over there.  I got in immediately.  I don't know how he got word, (I guess Jo called the school - no cell phones in those days, you know) but Mickey showed up at the doctor's office.  He had examined me and turned to Mickey and said, "Does she give into pain easily?"  I was bent over, unable to talk, and so glad my husband was there to answer for me...and THEN he said, "...Yeahhh".  WHAT?  If I'd had the strength, I would have socked him!! The doctor determined that I was scarred of having the baby and that he needed to give me a shot to relax me.  He gave me a big old shot of Demerol that not only made me loopy, but conked me out!  And then the real problems began.

He sent me home and all day that day, I slept - except when I was throwing my guts up.  Jo stayed with me and put me on Mom and Dad's bed.  I couldn't get up.  I couldn't function. I don't know how many times I threw up in the trash can beside the bed.  I do remember that Jo leaned in at one time and she had been eating Frito chips and the smell was so repulsive that I once again lost it.  What had once been food on my stomach all came up and then I began to throw up bile.  Now that was disgusting.

Late in the afternoon my mother got home.  I have dream-like memories of the rest of that day.  She came rushing into her room where I was half unconsciously lying and began giving orders.  She told Mickey to get me a housecoat and shoes.  She was excitedly mad and worried at the same time.  She didn't hide it.  I was helped to the car and taken immediately to the ER.  When I got out of the car, with Mickey's help, I was goose stepping and out of control.  A nurse saw me coming and ran out with a wheelchair.  She didn't hide her anxiety either.  She knew something was wrong.  She started asking questions and was shocked when told that I'd had a shot of Demerol that morning.  I knew she disapproved.

I don't have a good memory of much that happened next, except that my mother was in charge.  She probably saved my life and the life of my baby that night.  The Radiologist, Dr. Charles McClain (a dear friend of ours), was called in.  He looked directly at my doctor and asked, "Do you know where this baby's head is?" to which he nodded.  The ultrasound and x-rays revealed that I had blockage from gall stones.  My liver, pancreas and gall bladder were all blocked.  I was admitted to the hospital while waiting on decisions about delivery and what to do about this monstrous gall bladder attack were made by my doctor.

My mother was so mad at my doctor.  She had known him as a youngster at church and was never really comfortable with him as my physician.  He had said the wrong thing to her.  Before the x-rays, he had told her it was all in my head...that I was just afraid and the pain was in my head.  She told him, in not so nice of a tone, I'm sure, that HER children did not have problems in the head.  He was put on notice (at least in her mind).

My mother-in-law worked nights at a hotel as a clerk.  She came to the hospital to stay with me and let everyone else go home.  My face was so hot.  I needed to pee.  This was the way our night went.  I would ask her to turn over my pillow, she would get up and do it.  She would settle back down.  I would tell her I needed the bed pan.  She would get up and get it for me and help me on it.  I could't pee.  She would settle back down.  Then we would repeat the process over and over - all night long.  What an angel she was and I never forgot it.  I always called her on April 14 and asked her if she remembered what she was doing (however many) years ago tonight.  She never forgot either.

Mickey had Senior Tests the next day, April 15.  I told him to go on.  We laugh about it today and wonder how he did.  I'm not sure we ever got results, but he graduated.  His father was and IRS auditor - how appropriate that his first (and only that he ever knew) grandchild would be born on Income Tax Day.  But I am getting ahead.

The decision was made late in the afternoon to bring the baby on.  I was given a drip to begin labor and we waited.  But not for long.  They hooked me up to a monitor and as I was lying there, I began to notice the activity on it.  I asked the nurse, "Was that a contraction?"  She said, "Yes.  Honey, can't you feel that?"  I could't because the gall bladder blockage pain was too intense.  I felt the urge to push and said so.  On the gurney, the quickly wheeled me into the delivery room.  Mickey was with me. I remember the doctor saying to me, "I just need you to know that in the case I have to make a decision, I always save the mother's life."  I nodded my head - really not thinking there was a chance of that - being naive and stupid about the real danger we were both in.

The time had come to deliver.  I wasn't given any extra pain reliever, but probably the shot from the day before hadn't worn completely off.  I had about two contractions that I actually felt and it was time to push.  A little girl came out, blue and was whisked away quickly.  Her apgar was and 8 because she didn't breath immediately, but when she did, she pinked up quickly.  She had a full head of dark hair and very dark eyes and she was perfect.  Her head was round and her skin was already darker than mine.  She was like a doll.

After explaining to me that I could not nurse her because I would be on too many powerful drugs over the next weeks, I told them to give her a bottle.  They pretty much knocked me out and I didn't know a lot for the next day or two.  I did get to hold her and feed her, but Mickey had to be with me at all times.  I was kept in the hospital for the next week as they administered very strong IV antibiotics.  The gall stone had pushed through upon my delivering my baby and I had to heal now.

In those days there was no rooming in with the baby.  They kept them in the nursery.  Kelly was in the nursery with 12 other babies - all boys except her.  The grandparents weren't allowed to hold her or touch her.  No one but Mickey and I were allowed to do that.  One day I walked down the hall to see her and she was missing from her crate.  I asked where she was and they took me to an isolation room.  The nurse on duty was very secretive but because I asked why she had to tell me.  She had a very small spot of staff infection and had to be kept away from the other babies.  Staff infection is common in hospitals and she had contracted it.  They treated her for it and it quickly cleared up.

At the end of the week, Mom came to see me one day.  There was an older black nurse tending me that day.  She caught on that Mom had never gotten to hold her only grand daughter and was aghast.  She went and got scrubs and put them on Mom and brought Kelly to her.  It was a happy day for all three of us.  Finally after a week, the doctor released us and we got to go home where I continued to recover and learned how to care for a baby - from the best, my mom.