happy birthday BG!

Twenty eight years ago today I was laid up in the labor room at the sawmill getting a pit drip because I had been having contractions for two days already and was OVER the whole deal. It took several hours for epidural time to come so it was touch and go for me and baby daddy. He was quite supportive, in his own way, and we had attended pre-natal classes together to get ready for the big event. Nothing could have ever prepared me for the experience. You just have to live it. There was a pizza party going on in the waiting room that included my parents and some friends. By 10PM BG was a living person and laying on my arms as I peered into her little eyes. Due to the extended period of labor she had been meconium stained meaning that she was in stress and ready to get OUT of there. The doc offered fifteen more minutes of pushing and I chose forceps. Get 'her done!!! I pity those who go through that alone because it takes a village. You would be amazed at how many folks come into and go out of this world without another living soul who cares.

As a child, she was spoiled rotten because she was not just our only child but the only grandkid as well. Talk about some major good times with the grands! She rode the tractor with Daddy and made cookies with Mom, all the stuff that creates great memories. A congenitally missing tooth made her quite ashamed to smile and there was a period of years that I never saw it prior to the bridge and after the braces. Her childhood was rearranged early when her father and I divorced when she was nine. We got back together later, but divorced again during her senior year. That's when the real struggle started. She attended the local community college and found out after a brief course in nursing that she just wasn't cut out for that. Three years later while working a full time graveyard shift job, she got a degree in social work. Thanks to the post Bush economy, she's working at a local country store and loving every minute of it.

When she turned eighteen I made a video using pics and "In My Daughter's Eyes" as the background. I still cry when I watch her grow up and know that she is her mama's child, and her daddy's too. She is who she is and I'm humbled to have been a part of that. A gift from Big Ernie? You bet your sweet ass.

^j^