Happy Birthday, Nyssa!

Tomorrow my Nyssa will be 19 years old. It is hard to believe that she is all grown up, it seemed to happen so fast. So, Happy Birthday, sweet pea!

She was supposed to be born the first week in May, but Dr. Coggins was worried. He worried from the very beginning. His motto was, "You are a doctor too and if anything can go wrong it will." So, unlike normal patients I had to see him once a month from the start. He thought my blood pressure would go up and it did...only when he was in the room. I told him that I wanted to go to a medical meeting and that I would let him choose the one I would attend. There was one in Colorado in January and one in Utah in February. He chose the latter because he knew someone at Salt Lake City and he could send my medical records ahead of time in case anything happened. Nothing did.

As soon as I returned from Utah, he made me come in every week. I finally asked him if it wouldn't be easier for me just to put a cot in his exam room and live there. He talked to the group I worked with and made me take an hour in the morning and one in the afternoon to go and rest in Labor and Delivery. There they would take my blood pressure and call his office.

On tax day, April 15th, 1986 he made me quit work and go to bed rest because I gained seven fluid pounds in one week. I could be up for an hour and in bed for an hour. You can really get a lot done in bed.....put a drawer on the bed and sort it out....I got all the drawers in the bedroom cleaned out. After three days of this he made me go to "up for 30 minutes and down for an hour"....boring. At the end of the week on April 22nd, I had lost the seven pounds and I thought I would just go back to work for two more weeks. No.

That night he had me go to the hospital at 11 PM to be admitted for induction. A nurse was in charge on that shift that had been a midwife in England and he trusted her more than anyone. We did the induction thing, regular contractions and such for the whole day. It didn't hurt. He kept asking if I needed something for pain, and I said no it doesn't hurt. I wrote out checks for bills, read a couple of journal articles and basically was bored. Induction was stopped for the night and began again the next day, April 24th. Nothing seemed to be happening even with good contractions so Dr. Coggins and I had a discussion. "I think this could go on for the next two weeks and nothing is going to happen", I said. He agreed so I said, "Let's not do this for two weeks, let's go on and get it over." So Nyssa was born by C-section that evening after office hours.

I always thank God that he took care of us. Had we not decided to go ahead with the planned section, she would have required an emergency one as the umbilical cord was tightly wrapped around her neck twice. I shudder to think of the consequences. She was healthy, she was happy (once she got dry and warm), she even spent a couple of days as a naked beach bunny under the bili-lights (I often think that is where she developed her love of the sun), and she was and still is beautiful.

So, happy birthday, my kind, generous, talented, wonderful girl. I love you forever... and for always my baby you'll be.

MOM