Few experiences surpass the birth of my firstborn, Paul, on this date 33 years ago this morning. The surrounding circumstances still have me, in retrospect, rejoicing at God’s grace and providence. The Jacksons rarely do things by the book. This event was just one more exclamation to prove that point.
The week before Paul’s birth, due date March 3rd, his daddy was very ill. He ended up in the emergency room, where doctors could not diagnose the problem. Finally, he was the experimental trial for their yet unpacked and never before used sonogram machine, which discovered a blocked bile duct. He needed to have his gall bladder removed, pronto. So into surgery he went. Gangrene had set in, and several blood transfusions later, and five days in the hospital, he was released on orders that he could not drive, could not lift anything, and needed to do absolutely nothing for six weeks.
Of course, each day he was in the hospital, the nurses asked if I was staying. I waddled in and out.
The night of the 26th, I was in beginning stages of labor. Around seven in the morning, it was time to leave for the hospital. We heard a boom from the other bathroom. Ev’s mother had fallen. I attempted to lift her (bad mistake).
We called friends, Nancy and John Stickles, who lived nearby. They got her to the hospital. Ev drove me.
By nine o’clock, they had diagnosed Mother Jackson with a badly broken ankle which needed surgery to repair. Her surgery was scheduled for eleven. Meanwhile, a class of student nurses asked permission to attend our baby’s birth. Things were progressing satisfactorily, until they broke the bag of waters and detected meconium, indicating fetal distress, probably because I had lifted Ev’s mother!
So, time for emergency caesarian. I was taken to the emergency room while Mother Jackson waited on a stretcher in the hallway!
Within 20 minutes, beautiful Paul was born. She got to see him before I did!
Imagine, the Jacksons’ trips to the tiny Hudson Hospital probably paid the bills for the entire month of February!
The upside was that Ev was home the first five weeks of baby Paul’s adjustment to life, thank God, and that because of his surgery, he was much more sympathetic with my surgery woes. The three of us were hobbling, and the love of others for us was generous and welcome.
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