Birth Story for a Birthday Girl

Today is my baby sister Genny’s birthday. She is the real deal, and I love her sooooo much, it hurts just a tad. Every year I get better acquainted with the young woman she has become, and so every year I fall a little more in love with her. If you know Gen, then you know what I mean. She is a number crunching, book devouring, roller derby skating, wave making, bungalow buying, friendship nurturing, world traveling force of nature. And I was there when she was born. You’re welcome, world, is what Im trying to say.

Yours Truly with my baby sistah, Gen. She is a number crunching, book devouring, roller derby skating, wave making, bungalow buying, friendship nurturing, world traveling force of nature. And I was there when she was born. — Yours Truly with my baby sistah, Gen.

I originally posted my version of Gen’s birth story here two years ago, and if you’ll indulge me I am rebooting it today. http://thelazyw.blogspot.com/2012/01/twenty-nine-years-ago-yesterday.html

Happy Birthday sweet girl. I would love you forever even if I didn’t have to.

********************

Oklahoma City, 1983.

When I was not quite nine years old, Mom was El Preggo with the third of my four younger siblings. (I’m the oldest of five.) It had been a cold, happy winter of family gatherings and more than the normal amount of living room furniture rearranging. A person could reasonably attribute this to Mom’s strong nesting instincts. My favorite color was kelly green, and I had a sweater to prove it. I still thought I was going to grow up to be a gymnast. And my front-teeth misadventures were well under way. In case you were wondering.

As I recall, Mom was really healthy and had been displaying strong signs of labor for most of the Christmas season. By this third week in January the family’s excitement level was anything but low. We were all on happy little pins and needles, even with Christmas neatly packed away. I was almost nine years old, so my sister Angela would have been four and a half and our little brother Joey not quite two. Philip would be born in another three years.

For some wonderful reason my parents decided to invite me to be part of the new baby’s birth whenever it finally happened. Our sweet Grandma Stubbs, who lived just five blocks away, was all set to watch over the little ones at home, and my parents’ friend Debbie and I were to be included in the hospital business. I was extremely happy about this plan, you guys. Anything to make me feel like one of the adults, you know?

Okay. Here’s how it went down.

I was sound asleep when Dad came in stage whispering, “Reezie, let’s go. Wake up. Your Mom’s having the baby.” (Sometimes Dad still calls me Reezie. I love it.) I definitely remember thinking, Are you sure this time, Dad? But I would not have said that aloud, because it might have broken the spell which allowed me those oldest-kid privileges like seeing the new baby first.

I could barely hear my Mom’s voice across the bare wood hallway upstairs and was listening intensely to my young parents shuffle quietly through the rooms, not wanting to wake the little ones. Grandma must have already made it to our house, because her Estee Lauder perfume is part of my memory of that night.

Debbie was already there, too. She was my parents’ good friend, someone who I loved dearly and who always ate granola with honey and who carried a purple backpack full of notebooks and dangly earrings and who went to school in places like Vermont. Vermont! She sent me postcards from college. It was a pretty big deal. She had a gorgeous mane of hair that at one time was shorn off with just a three foot braid trailing down her narrow back. She was a beautiful mystery to me.

Deb was a midwife and a smart, loving woman, but we were still headed to the hospital. We found the travel bags that had been long-since prepared. Dad helped Mom into the back seat of our cute little white Subaru wagon. She is petite and so fit perfectly on the shallow bench seat. I was perched on Debbie’s lap in the front passenger seat. It was freezing cold, and my teeth chattered. Dad drove. Dad drove like I had never seen him drive before, nor have I since. I doubt he ever blinked once on that drive.

We lived only about ten minutes from Baptist hospital in Oklahoma City, and with the absence of traffic in the wee hours of the morning, it should have been a quick, uneventful trip.

We drove north-west up the Expressway, slicing through the dark with our happy little emergency. I sat stone like on Debbie’s calm lap and did not say a word. In my mind I can remember her patchouli smell, too, and feel her long braid against my shoulder. Her lavender vinyl backpack full of treasures was at our feet. Back then I thought Debbie was a wizened creature of the universe, older than I would ever be, but in truth she was just out of high school, not yet off to college in Vermont. She was surely wise then but very young. Perspective is a funny thing.

We all sat stiffly in our seats and trembled from the cold and the adrenaline. I remember eventually giggling with Debbie and feeling so grown up and special to be allowed this chance to welcome our new family member into the world. Seeing a sibling born is something that just cannot be duplicated.

“Joe, it’s time! It’s really, really time!” Mom was nearly shrieking. Shrieking.

Now remember, in Dad’s defense, there had already been a few false starts that holiday season. Hard contractions were a fact of daily life since Christmas, so much so that I was trained by then to help time them. So Dad had to think it could be another false alarm. And besides, we lived scant minutes away from the hospital and he was already driving that little Subaru like a Duke boy.

Now, in Mom’s defense, she had already given birth naturally three times in her young life. Even with the season’s false labors, she had to know what she was talking about. From my nine-year old front seat perspective that night? My money was on Mom. For real.

“I know, we’re almost there. Hang on.” Dad’s focus alternated between the pointless midnight traffic lights, the Subaru’s stick shift, and the reflection of his young wife in the rear view mirror. I cannot tell you with certainty that he was breathing. Or blinking.

“No, I’m not kidding! It’s really time, NOW!!!”

“Almost there, honey!”

“Joe, NOW! RIGHT NOW!! I mean it!”

Just recalling this moment gives me a rush of fear and wonder.

Dad zipped off to the grassy center median just shy of May avenue and threw the Subaru into park. He raced around the nose of the car to the passenger side and pulled open the back door. He arrived just in time to catch his baby as Mom pushed. And screamed.

Just in time.

I will never for as long as I live forget the moment that Mom’s guttural screaming changed over to laughter. Effervescent, joyful, riotous laughter! Have you ever heard this rare, split second syllable before? Whatever pain and panic she was feeling one moment was instantly and permanently forgotten, as labor pain often is. Her voice was suddenly all thrill and love and peace, elation and amazement in the cold cargo light of the Subaru back seat.

Then we all started laughing again, and Debbie and I hugged ferociously in the front seat. I remember twisting around to stare at my beautiful Momma, a thick white chenille blanket wrapped around her and slightly bloodied. This tiny, messy, trembling, screaming bundle on her hips. Mom was curling up easily to find her infant’s face and offered the most beautiful, most consuming smile I had ever seen.

“It’s a girl!” Dad said shakily. I had another sister. And I loved her instantly. We all did.

Then I got a glimpse of the gross ropy alien umbilical cord, gagged a little in my throat, and turned back to face front.

I remember very few details after that except arriving at the emergency room drive up doors. Dad escorted Mom with the baby girl and several happy nurses into the cavernous mouth of the hospital, and Debbie and I were on our own for a while. Family legend has it that Debbie fainted at the hospital! I wish I had more of that story for you. But I was only nine years old, and quite sleepy by then.

All was well. Both Mom and Genny were healthy and perfect, and that Subaru would go down in history for sure. I wonder if Dad ever drives west on the Expressway without thinking of that night. Another family legend is that we almost named Genny “Toni” because she was born directly across from an Italian restaurant, Tony’s Vi Aroma. But instead she became Genevieve Michelle Dunaway, and when I returned to fourth grade to tell the story I proudly said her name was Guinevere. Everyone believed me.

Friends, being one of the first people to see my beautiful little sister Genny sort of gave me the idea that she was partly mine. Helping to cuddle, change diapers, and entertain tiny siblings is one thing; witnessing that first moment of air-sucking emergence into this crazy world is quite another. It doesn’t hurt that she has remained perfectly adorable and loving in every way.

With Gen, all suited up to check the bees.

Thanks for sharing in this happy memory today. Please feel free to leave a birthday wish for Gen here.

Do you have a cool birth story to share? I would love to hear that, too!

I love you Gen, More than you know.

XOXOXOXO

Debra Walter says

January 23, 2021 at 11:52 am

I love this version of the story! Joe, we should both definitely add our perspectives!
It was such a crazy beautiful night for that fourth Dunaway to burst onto the scene!
Perspective takes on a life of its own. Whose version is the truth? Not that they are terribly different, but I could add a few thoughts of my own here.
I remember wanting to write the story of this, my first birth attendance.But words felt inadequate for such a profound experience. I was not a midwife except in my aspirations and Alison and I had been reading several midwifery titles including “Spiritual Midwifery” by Ina Mae Gaskin. Perhaps this was one of the reasons Alison was so reticent to leave home that bitter cold December night.
I remember the phone in the hallway by my room ringing sometime around 3:00am. I jumped to answer it, knowing immediately, this was it! This was the moment we had all been anticipating! I was honored to be Marie’s support person. I had been stopping by after school for several weeks. I was 17, a senior at an alternative high school! I had adopted Alison and her family (or had they adopted me?) and I adored them all with all my heart! I couldn’t wait to meet this new little person and I was delighted to help my little buddy Marie welcome them into the fold!
When I arrived, Alison was still upstairs. She didn’t want to leave. She was adamant. Joe greeted me at the door, somewhat exasperated, “She won’t leave.” I was full of intuition and lack of actual experience and I hurried to Al’s side. She was perspiring and laboring hard. But a home birth was not the plan. I knew enough to know that, as lovely as the idea of a home birth was, we were not properly prepared and reading about birth, was not the same as being experienced . I knew I was not qualified.
“Alison, we need to get you to the car!” I was kind but firm. “I can’t!”, she insisted. But somehow Joe was able to help her down the stairs and into the back of the Suburu. In what was likely less than ten minutes, Alison was begging Joe to stop the car. I remember hearing Alison’s first push, and that is a sound, a force of nature! “Joe! Pull over!” I think I said.
And just like that, he did. Opening the door to the back seat just in time to catch his fourth child! For me, time froze for a moment of pure holy bliss. Relief, joy and tears streamed down my friend’s face. She did it! Her sweet baby girl had come on her own terms. Alison had known.
For years I felt badly that I hadn’t let Alison stay home. I wished I had had the skills, the confidence. But being born in the back of the Suburu on a silent expressway on a frosty winter morning, is really a much better story!
Once we arrived at the hospital, my own experience was how the spell was broken. At the ER, Joe went in and the nurses came out, shushing us away as they proceeded to cut the cord and wisk baby and mama away. Since she was born outside the sterile confines of the hospital, they were considered “contaminated” and had to be separated, isolated and examined to determine their overall health.This infuriated me!
Alison went one way and baby went another. Marie and I were left in the waiting area still shaking from the magnitude of it all.
I must have kept my distain for the hospital protocols to myself. But when we were finally allowed to go see Alison, I remember feeling powerless to help my friend. It struck me. This was the opposite of what a new mama needed. And the baby, who I so desperately wanted to see upon her mama’s chest, was wrapped neatly like a package in the little plexiglass cradle . We were allowed to view her through the nursery window.

Seeing Alison, then seeing the baby, my head was spinning. And, yes, I fainted! I remember Alison’s father helping me up and then taking Marie and I out for breakfast at a nearby diner whose name I have since forgotten, but it was a well-known establishment out on 63rd, I think. It was the place folks went to sober up after the bars closed, or a baby was born.

I left Oklahoma forever, six months later. I left with this cherished memory in search of my new tribe. The Dunaway family, was one of my most heartbreaking treasures to have to leave. I am delighted to know that I wrote a few letters. Vermont was where I found my own love and where I fell in love with writing, poetry, my true calling: the care and education of young children.

Extraordinary stories connect me to extraordinary people! I wonder what Joe and Alison’s stories about this morning, 38 years ago, are. Happy birth day, Dunaway Family!

Comments

Dad Dunaway says

January 24, 2014 at 12:35 am

Someday I’ll write this story from a completely different perspective! You’ve omitted some interesting detail that adds to the drama and the fun of that night.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY GENEVIEVE!!

- Marie at the Lazy W says
  
  January 24, 2014 at 1:39 am
  
  Dad!! I would looooove to read this story, ANY story, from your perspective, seriously get to writing! Haha I’m so excited right now. XOXOXOXO
  
- Genevieve says
  
  January 23, 2021 at 10:15 am
  
  Yes please! What details are missing?
  
Shel Harrington says

January 24, 2014 at 11:48 pm

Happy birthday, Gen – what a lovely tribute from your sister! And Marie, I can only imagine how much you WOULD like to hear your dad’s version. Bet your mom has a good one, too!

Debra Walter says

January 23, 2021 at 11:52 am

I love this version of the story! Joe, we should both definitely add our perspectives!
It was such a crazy beautiful night for that fourth Dunaway to burst onto the scene!
Perspective takes on a life of its own. Whose version is the truth? Not that they are terribly different, but I could add a few thoughts of my own here.
I remember wanting to write the story of this, my first birth attendance.But words felt inadequate for such a profound experience. I was not a midwife except in my aspirations and Alison and I had been reading several midwifery titles including “Spiritual Midwifery” by Ina Mae Gaskin. Perhaps this was one of the reasons Alison was so reticent to leave home that bitter cold December night.
I remember the phone in the hallway by my room ringing sometime around 3:00am. I jumped to answer it, knowing immediately, this was it! This was the moment we had all been anticipating! I was honored to be Marie’s support person. I had been stopping by after school for several weeks. I was 17, a senior at an alternative high school! I had adopted Alison and her family (or had they adopted me?) and I adored them all with all my heart! I couldn’t wait to meet this new little person and I was delighted to help my little buddy Marie welcome them into the fold!
When I arrived, Alison was still upstairs. She didn’t want to leave. She was adamant. Joe greeted me at the door, somewhat exasperated, “She won’t leave.” I was full of intuition and lack of actual experience and I hurried to Al’s side. She was perspiring and laboring hard. But a home birth was not the plan. I knew enough to know that, as lovely as the idea of a home birth was, we were not properly prepared and reading about birth, was not the same as being experienced . I knew I was not qualified.
“Alison, we need to get you to the car!” I was kind but firm. “I can’t!”, she insisted. But somehow Joe was able to help her down the stairs and into the back of the Suburu. In what was likely less than ten minutes, Alison was begging Joe to stop the car. I remember hearing Alison’s first push, and that is a sound, a force of nature! “Joe! Pull over!” I think I said.
And just like that, he did. Opening the door to the back seat just in time to catch his fourth child! For me, time froze for a moment of pure holy bliss. Relief, joy and tears streamed down my friend’s face. She did it! Her sweet baby girl had come on her own terms. Alison had known.
For years I felt badly that I hadn’t let Alison stay home. I wished I had had the skills, the confidence. But being born in the back of the Suburu on a silent expressway on a frosty winter morning, is really a much better story!
Once we arrived at the hospital, my own experience was how the spell was broken. At the ER, Joe went in and the nurses came out, shushing us away as they proceeded to cut the cord and wisk baby and mama away. Since she was born outside the sterile confines of the hospital, they were considered “contaminated” and had to be separated, isolated and examined to determine their overall health.This infuriated me!
Alison went one way and baby went another. Marie and I were left in the waiting area still shaking from the magnitude of it all.
I must have kept my distain for the hospital protocols to myself. But when we were finally allowed to go see Alison, I remember feeling powerless to help my friend. It struck me. This was the opposite of what a new mama needed. And the baby, who I so desperately wanted to see upon her mama’s chest, was wrapped neatly like a package in the little plexiglass cradle . We were allowed to view her through the nursery window.

Seeing Alison, then seeing the baby, my head was spinning. And, yes, I fainted! I remember Alison’s father helping me up and then taking Marie and I out for breakfast at a nearby diner whose name I have since forgotten, but it was a well-known establishment out on 63rd, I think. It was the place folks went to sober up after the bars closed, or a baby was born.

I left Oklahoma forever, six months later. I left with this cherished memory in search of my new tribe. The Dunaway family, was one of my most heartbreaking treasures to have to leave. I am delighted to know that I wrote a few letters. Vermont was where I found my own love and where I fell in love with writing, poetry, my true calling: the care and education of young children.

Extraordinary stories connect me to extraordinary people! I wonder what Joe and Alison’s stories about this morning, 38 years ago, are. Happy birth day, Dunaway Family!

Meredith says

January 23, 2024 at 9:44 am

All of this is so amazing! I love Debra’s side of the story! How fantastic!

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