There were two family birthdays in the last two days, and both of them were born in Hawaii. Coincidence? Maybe but I don’t believe in coicidences. So as I sit here writing this I am trying to piece any connections together. Jennifer was our first born daughter, and Anna Roan was Lisa’s firstborn daughter. At the time, Lisa was in the Coast Guard flying C-130’s. I had my Aircraft Commander checkout in the C-130 three days before Kennifer was born. They were both born on Oahu, really not very far apart. I don’t know, I’ll have to ocontinue to think about the similarities.
Jennifer was born on December 11. I remember it well. We got up that morning, and around 8 or 8:30, Julia started having labor pains. She had had some before, so I wanted to make sure before we went to Tripler. Tripler is the big Army hospital. It is a tremendous pink building sitting up in the hills. You can see it from almost anywhere in Honolulu. It took about 30 minutes to get there, so we always had a bag packed. We had taken Lamaze classes. That’s the closest thing to natural childbirth that we had heard of, and we were all ready.
So, I took Julia to the hospital. They said she wasn’t dilated enough, and had us walk around the grounds for about 30 minutes before they sent us home. So, we drove home, disappointed and then Julia went to bed. I was getting ready to go to work when her water broke. We called the hospital and they told us to come back, so we made the drive again. Once we got there the labor and delivery went pretty fast, and Jennifer was born about 1:30 in the afternoon. Tripler was ahead of it’s time, they made Julia get up and walk to get her meals, and they had Julia with her in the room most of the time.
Julia and I were in Hawaii for Anna Roan’s birth. It was beautiful looking at all the Christmas lights. I think that Hawaiians make up for the lack of cold or snow by over decorating. I can remember walking down one of the streets near Lisa’s and it seemed like walking down the main street at Disney world during the Christmas parade. I remember that we left for Hawaii on Dec 4th because Lisa’s due date was around the 5th or 6th. Well, by the 11th Lisa was fit to be tied. That afternoon, she just wanted to be alone, so she sent us out to dinner and to a movie. I think we went to see the movie about Mary. We were only a third of the way into the movie when Hernan called and said that Lisa was in labor and wanted us back.
Well, Lisa was going to have a home birth. She had a midwife, and Julia was going to help. I was going to help by staying out of the way. As far out of the way as I possibly could. My plan was to have my headsets on and watch Star Wars on my computer. It worked too, at least for a while. But once everything started, I could here things through my headset; things that I really didn’t want to here. Well, Lisa’s labor started on the 11th, and we thought that Anna Roan would be born on Jennifer’s birthday, but that was not to be. It was close to 1AM on December 12 when she was born. We were there. We were there for both births, born in Hawaii, years apart, but really close together. Both were special and we were very glad to be at both.
So, Jennifer celebrated her birthday yesterday in Ft Lauderdale, and today Anna Roan celebrated in Juneau. Sheryl and I will be there in two days, so I hope to make some new memories for Anna Roan and us while we are there. Life moves on, but memories remain sketced in your brain forever. O, looking forward to the opportunity to make some new ones. This Chirstmas will be a great time for making them.
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