Adults, children and birthdays: Part 1

This year on January 29th my daughter turns 30. This seems to stick in my head as bizarre and un-natural much more than the fact that I turned 50.

I (obvously) had Jessica when I was 20. I had come home after a rather unsuccessful attempt at Nurses training in Albany New York. I was working as a nursing assistant in Burlington, going out most weekends to my favorite bar in Rousse Point NY. Living at home with my parents which made my mother pretty happy. I was pretty irresponsible.

As time rolls on you event of the past get jumbled. I was "seeing" one of the bartenders at the time. He was divorced and had a little girl but really did not seem to want anything more. I had just quit seeing this hunk from Canada, Daniel Racine. One of those, he doesn't speak much English, I don't speak much French. Didn't matter. Several months into the bartender thing I started to "miss" my period......I have never been a good historian so it was just like "when did I? I had started to gain weight and my tolerance for fish, booze and cigarettes had gone south. My mother cornered me in the kitchen (somethings are clear as day) and got me to admit that I was most likely pregnant.

Everyone was excited but me...I was shell shocked. We were told if we wanted any type of assistance I would need to move out and go on welfare. Got to love the government. So I stayed home and was still covered by my dad's insurance when I produced my daughter.

I always like to tell everyone about my labor. It was before people were big into planing anad classes. I never even had an Ultra Sound. My BP had been high so I was already in the hospital (not complying well to the bedrest thing). In the late afternoon of 1/28 I started having moderately intense, and very regular, menstual cramps. I called my sister to ask her (4 children and a couple of miscarriages for her) what it was like. She said she would keep the driveway clear. At about 11p I decided I was no longer OK with the way I felt and called for a nurse. I got the condesending "you're fine, take this and you'll rest". Well I took what ever they gave me but within 15-20 minutes I had decided to once again assert to the nurses that I was indeed in labor and promptly tossed up the pill thay had given me. I must have been pretty advanced because the nurses started running around like chickens with their heads cut off (that has always been one of those odd sayings). My sister arrived a bit before 1a and some idiot anesthesiologist went ahead with an epidural for a child that was nearly delivered! Dr. Wirts slowed Jessica's progress out to suction out her mouth as my sister, proud mother of 4 boys, threatened to come and take over if he did not promptly display the sex organs of this child!! So at 1:29a on 1/29/77 I delivered Jessica Lynn Colomb.

I don't know when I became a mother though. As a fairly unprepared post teen I really had no idea what I was in for. Maybe I became a mother the day I decided to leave my parents home. Jessica was a joy to raise. We had old fashioned discipline, none of this "now honey don't touch that hot stove cause the heat is going through and the electricity....." just don't touch!! Moving to California was a real crazy thing in the eyes of my mother. Another one of those clear as day moments, standing in the living room, she is yelling at me for taking her grand daughter away, people in California are crazy, I hope someday your child treats you the way you are treating me. But she came with us to California to make sure we got settled OK. The saddest thing was saying goodbye to my dad that morning and wathching him on the back step of the house.

Fresno was my first taste of real freedom. Crazy was not far from my mind. We had a little one bedroom and mom insisted we rent to own furniture...got rid of the furniture as soon as she left. Jessica got the bedroom though. As a grown adult who had slept in the same room as my mother for all of my life I was not about to do that to my kid. Jessica would benefit from this well into adulthood, masterbedroom all the way.

Fresno Life: to be continued