The first thing I learned about an eight month pregnant wife is not to take her to the movie “Rosemary’s Baby”. To those who don’t know that was a Mia Farrow movie about a woman who gets pregnant by the devil. We had taken the bus to base to see the movie, settled down with our popcorn and after the first hour of terror, she calmly told me that her water broke.
Now as a mature 20 year old I had some experience with water breaking. When I was living with my sister Janet and going to college, she woke me up one morning after Roger and the girls had gone off to work and school and informed me that her water broke and we had to do something. Now the reason that I was in bed and not attending classes was because my car was out of gas and I was out of money.
We were living in an old farm house in northern Minnesota. The driveway was about ¼ mile long and the nearest neighbor was about one mile away. The second nearest neighbor was another mile farther. We had electricity, but no phone. We did have a really nice pump house where we got our water and medium nice outhouse. If you don’t know what an outhouse is ask your parents.
I quickly got up, saddled the horse and headed to the nearest neighbor. There was nobody home. I then went to the next neighbor. They weren’t home either. There must be a sale on farm equipment or beer at the co-op. I took a short cut back through the woods and across the river. I’m not making any of this up. Janet was nice and calm, which was good. I figured if she wasn’t worried everything must be OK. I gathered up a gas can and a hose and went to various junk cars and tractors that we kept around for just such an emergency, and siphoned out a couple of gallons of gas. I put the gas into my 1955 Ford. This was in 1966 so the Ford was only 11 years old. It wasn’t rusted out too bad and it ran pretty good. We loaded up an overnight bag and a calm mother-to-be and headed out.
Now the Ford ran pretty good, but there was a slight problem with the transmission. It wouldn’t climb a hill in low gear. There was a couple of big hills right after a “T” in the road. When I was by myself, I would hit the turn about 25 miles an hour so I could keep up the momentum to climb the hill. Now a 90 degree turn on a dirt road at 25 mph was an adventure that I thought I should spare sister under these circumstances, so I turned around at the bottom of the hill and backed up it. I think we had to back up a couple of more hills on the way.
We stopped at a friend’s house. They weren’t home. Where was everybody?? We knew where they hid the key and went inside and called the doctor. He said you better get in to the hospital in Virginia right away. Now after all of these years my memory is not too clear, but I think I dropped her off at the emergency entrance and by the time I parked the car, Scott Peterson was testing out his lungs.
Luckily I didn’t have to saddle up a horse that evening in Holland. We just walked across the street to the base clinic. After a couple of hours of sitting around in the clinic and a couple of phone calls to the doctor, they decided that nothing was happening and brought us home. The next day we went and saw her doctor and he explained a lot of intimate details about the inside of a woman and something about only a partial break of a protective lining and everything was OK.
Things were fine for the next month and a half and then she again announced that her water broke. This time it was for real. We sat around watching TV and waiting. At least Hedda was watching TV, I was watching Hedda.
“Do you feel anything?”
“No”
“Do you feel anything?”
“No”
This went on for a few hours and then we went to bed.
“Do you feel anything?”
“No”
“Do you feel anything?”
“Well, just a little pain in my belly.”
“What else are you waiting for?”
We called the doctor. He came to the house and checked her out and said let’s head for the hospital. Now Hedda and all of her siblings had been delivered by this doctor in this house. We were going to the hospital because of an insecure twenty year old – wait it’s after midnight – an insecure twenty-one year old American. I had just realized that it was my birthday.
I made Hedda ride in the doctor’s car and I followed. We got to the birthing room and the doctor checked her out again and then asked the nurse if she would set some tea. TEA!! There was a baby coming! Somebody do something!!! So we drank some tea and when Elizabeth Jane was ready about an hour later I had the best birthday present ever!
Hedda
Oma Hardeman & Lisa (Elizabeth)
Opa Hardeman & Lisa (Elizabeth)
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