Lisa turns 13

Lisa on her second birthday in 1999.

Today is my daughter Lisa’s 13th birthday. She was my first child. Her mother was my first wife, Colleen. This wasn't Colleen's first kid. Colleen had a set of twins when I met her. This was Colleen’s second pregnancy though. Colleen insisted on having the baby in Waukon. I would come to insist on the same myself thereafter. Veteran’s Memorial Hospital is one of the best small hospitals that I have been in.


Lisa was about a week late. Colleen was using a Dr. Richard Perry at the time. He was a good doctor. Very good actually. He induced Colleen and she warned him that when she was induced for the twins, she gave birth quickly. There is a clinic that was nearby that Dr. Perry also saw patients in and he wanted to go over to the clinic to see his patients so he had the nurses monitor Colleen. Remember, this is my first child. I have never seen a baby being born; human baby that is. I’ve seen all sorts of animals being born. I expected some blood. I expected some slime. No problem. I was a hardened farm boy.

Well, as predicted, Colleen started going through labor quickly. She was dilating rapidly. She was acting really weird, writhing about and making noises that I didn’t think a human could make. I was starting to get spooked. The nurses didn’t help either. They were panicking. They couldn’t get Dr. Perry to answer the phone over in the clinic and they had a baby coming out right now! They begged Colleen not to push, but Colleen wouldn’t have any of it. This kid was coming out! One good push and Lisa popped out. I about fainted.

Actually, I wouldn’t say that I about fainted, rather, I about had a heart attack. The nurse exclaimed some expletive and dropped the phone and tried to do a football receiver style catch. It was a good thing that the end of the bed was still up or Lisa would have ended up on the floor. The nurse even failed to catch her. Lisa had the blondest of blonde hair when she was born. It was actually closer to white than blonde. Put that under the slimy stuff that has a yellowish hue and it looked sort of neon; as if it belonged on a character from H.R. Pufnstuf. I expected a pink baby, not the color that was lying there before me. Lisa was a purplish color. Contrast that with the neon whitish yellow hair, and she was totally not what I expected or had ever seen before. Now, as if that wasn’t bad enough, she started crying on her own, but it wasn’t a normal cry. It was a gurgling sound. She looked pissed off - as if she had been really comfortable lounging out in her mother’s abdomen and someone came and kicked her out of bed at 3 a.m. She was sort of shaking. The whole picture looked like she was half alien – half demon. Then to top this all off, Lisa looked like me. A miniature me, in odd colors, looking half alien – half demon, acting more like the demon, .....and she looked....like .....ME!  It was more than I could process at that moment. I was scared and freaked out. I wanted to get away. I found no beauty in this. I tried to back away from the bed. I couldn’t. There was a wall behind me. I kept trying to back up and get away. I was in total disbelief. My feet were moving but I wasn’t.

The nurse said, “She’s so beautiful.” I asked if that was normal. The nurse tried to reassure me that it was normal to be that color. You could have fooled me.

“Do you want to cut her umbilical cord?” the nurse asked. No way. I didn’t want to go near her. She really freaked me out. I was in shock.

The doctor finally came up and I watched him and the nurse get into an argument. Dr. Perry sounded like he was criticizing the nurse for this mishap. The nurse was pissed off. I heard the nurse say to him, “What did you expect me to do, shove her back in there until YOU were ready?”

I asked for a different doctor, much to the nurse’s delight. She said that she couldn’t tell me which doctor they prefer, but she asked me to notice the smile on her face when I asked for Dr. Schwartz. Now, for those of you who are unfamiliar with Dr. Schwartz, he is a minor saint in my book. He’s really good with people, kids, and the staff around him. I have never seen him be condescending towards anyone. In fact, I’ve sat outside the hospital with him while he visited with me while he ate what appeared to be a liverwurst sandwich. I have used him for every child of mine since. My second wife was apprehensive to use a new doctor, but she too became a believer in him. She wouldn’t use anyone else now either.

It took awhile before I would even hold Lisa. It was a traumatic experience for me. I was totally unprepared for her arrival, or at least the way she arrived. For the record, I am the father of five kids and I have left the room for every child since Lisa. I don’t sit in there and watch the kid come out. I ask the nurse to let me know when they get the kid cleaned up, and then I’ll go see my new baby. When Brandi (my #2) was born (after a terribly long delivery) the nurse was pretty snippy with me for not wanting to be in the room when Brandi was born. I think Dr. Schwartz explained it to her later though as she chilled out. When my son Sean was born, Dr. Schwartz told me that I might want to get out of the room while the getting was good. God bless him. 


Lisa in October 2010.

  




Lisa has grown into a beautiful young lady. She will have a funny story to tell her grandchildren some day.