I’m going to get a new baby brother or sister tonight. Before I went to bed, my mommy told me the baby was coming except it wouldn’t be for a while, so I still had to go to sleep. When she tucked me in she promised me she would wake me up in time. But then I couldn’t sleep because I was so excited. I kept trying to close my eyes but it didn’t work. I was laying in my bed and the light in the hallway was on and I just couldn’t sleep so finally my mom said I could get up.
There was a little bit of a problem. The baby was coming soon except the doctor wasn’t there yet. It was snowing outside, lots and lots of snow in the middle of the night and the doctor was out there somewhere, trying to make it to our house. I kept running to the front door and looking out the windows, but I couldn’t really see anything except dark and snow and more snow. It was really windy and the snow was piling up all over the place.
My mom had me in the hospital. She did not like that. They strapped her legs down so she couldn’t move them and I was pretty big, so they pulled me out with these head smasher things, and then she had a fever after I was born so they wouldn’t let her hold me. So she decided not to have any more babies in the hospital.
So we were waiting and waiting for the doctor and he wasn’t coming. Then my mom thought she had to go to the bathroom and when she was on the toilet, she almost had the baby! So she hurried up into the bedroom and right then and there my little sister was born. My dad helped get her out since the doctor wasn’t there. Then, just that very minute when she came out, the doctor finally came! He said that everything was just fine and he helped my dad cut off the cord and clean her up. She was pretty red and slimy when she came out, except she had lots of black hair, not like me. I was mostly bald until I was two.
Then there was lots of family over. It was the middle of the night, but they all came: my aunts and uncles, my parents’ friends Mike and Patty and my grandmas. It was like a baby party right then and there. Bonnie didn’t even really notice since she kept falling asleep. We took turns holding her and everybody was so happy. I finally had a baby sister after waiting for four and a half years.
Three Taboos 
Actually no head-smasher things were involved in your birth, thank goodness. Concerns about head-smasher things and other often needless and invasive medical interventions, however, were definitely motivators for your siblings’ home births.
The doctor was still hoping to get his golf game in that Sunday morning, so I’m grateful labor and delivery with you went so quickly and easily, or he might have wanted to speed things up with the head-smasher things.
I remember getting really agitated hearing you crying down the hall in the nursery in the middle of the night when they were supposed to bring you to me on demand for feedings. I had to go plant myself in front of the nursery window a few times in the middle of night (to the consternation of more than one overworked nurse who knew the jig was up and she was going to have to schlep you and your little isolette down the hall to my room.) And more than once when they finally got around to bringing you, it was pretty obvious by your sleepiness and formula burps that they’d fed you by the time they brought you to me. It almost seemed like intentional breast feeding sabotage.
I’m glad hospital births have become more family-centered and breast-feeding friendly since your birth. Birthing rooms, rooming-in, breastfeeding consultants, and going home within a few hours of birth are all options that weren’t available way back then. (Hee hee. . . oh, wait, I guess I shouldn’t laugh, cuz that means I’m getting old too. . . ) At least they did let fathers in the delivery room even THAT long ago though. :)