Chapter 4: Two Beautiful Children

In mom's own words:

Like the words of the song recorded by Whitney Houston, I do believe the children are our future.  My mother had many miscarriages before and after me, and she instilled the message in me that babies are golden, the pearl of great price, and that you protect them with your life at all cost.  My parents had tried to adopt a child as well, but were told it was not possible whiles they had such a sick little girl with medical procedures and expenses looming head.

During my post surgical treatment as a 6 year old, the radiation field came very close to my pituitary gland.  The doctors over the years said that I might not be able to have children; so after 3 years of marriage my husband and I began the process of adoption.  To our delight and amazement, I found myself pregnant before the final paperwork was completed.

All the husbands in our Air Force wind came home from a 6 month tour flying over Viet-Nam on my due date in March of 1970.  The aircraft commander's wife had an ambulance standing by in the hanger as all the KC-135's and B-52's came in.  I guess she thought I might get so excited that I would plunk the kid right down there on the tarmac.  Reunions on a grant scale are very exciting, but son Andy waited to make his appearance in the world three weeks later.  The labor was induced, and the doctors speculated that the delay might be due to the radiation in 1949.

I looked over at Andy lying in the isolette next to me.  We looked in each other's eyes and it was love at first site.  There was a sense of lineage, of the life force passing through me as this beautiful little boy, who was flesh of my flesh, came into the world; it was the most incredible experience I had ever had.  I stayed awake all night envisioning our future.  In later years I would come to call it my first truly vibrant experience of the inner-self.  I spent that night in an altered state of being, seeing life's existence and its meaning through benevolent, purposeful, and compassionate eye(s).  I recognized that my life would never again be the same.