The High Point of My Life

Some days engrave themselves on your memory, your psyche.  Some days you know you will never forget.]

It was July 19, 1975.

But really the start of the story was the fall of the year before.  I had been feeling ill. My stomach was off. Not once. Often.  I was worried. This wasn’t like me at all.

So I hopped on the bus and made a trip to my doctor’s office.

“Could you be pregnant?” she asked me.

Well, I could be but I wasn’t. My husband and I hadn’t yet really decided about the issue of children.  I was pretty certain I didn’t want children. Tales my mother told of having broken her lower vertebrae during labor left me shuddering commited to a childless existence.

She tested. And yes, I was pregnant.

I left that office visit in a daze and boarded the bus for home.

I didn’t want to experience child birth, I told myself. But it would be wrong not to want the child that had taken root within me. I would want her, I decided. I would love her. (It was always a her.)

I’m going to have a baby, I recited to myself as I clutched the pole on the CTA bus. I’m going to have a baby.

Then something unexpected happened. A caged bird inside my chest started to sing. I wanted to jump up and shout to all the other passengers, “I’m going to have a baby.”

And months later, there I was, most uncomfortable in a hospital bed. I WAS having a baby.

After an all-night stay in the hospital my doctor concluded things were moving too slowly. Pitocin  should do the trick.

It did. And 45 minutes later I was in the delivery room.

Push, the doctor said. I did. And out spurted  this baby. A little too soon, perhaps. It seemed like the doctor was going to drop it. But no, the baby was caught. And it was . . . YES . . . a girl.

Ashley Simone had begun.

And that moment froze and stays crystal clear in my memory. Suddenly all the hard work was over. Pain was gone. Here was a tiny living breathing human being.

And I had participated in a miracle. New life.

Soon she was in my arms and the bonding began.

Yes, she moved right in and staked out a huge claim in my heart.

I had no clue what  a dynamic, challenging, loving, fun, special person this tiny thing would become. (Nor how many wonderful meals she would prepare for me.)

All I knew was this—there she was. A life. A being that had emerged from me.

Surely the high point of my life.

This is for you, Ashley Simone. Happy Birthday.  I love you.