Little Vanessa

Whenever I hear people talk about harrowing car rides to hospitals I think back to my trip across the Bequia channel on a Baltic schooner while in labor!  It was the middle of the night with a thunderstorm whipping up the sea, not ideal conditions for sailing at the best of times.  My friend Vanessa got seasick as she sat by my side, ready to help me give birth if “push came to shove”.  The crew on the Lena Marie’s deck had grown quiet, concentrating on getting us to the mainland in one piece.

We arrived at Kingstown port at 3:00 A.M., where “Charlie Tango” taxi was waiting on the wharf to take me to the Botanic Garden Hospital.  I had to climb down a rope ladder, get into a rocking wooden dinghy, be rowed to the wharf, then get pulled up and onto the dock in order to get into the taxi.  I was giddy with excitement and relief, if the baby had been born on the boat I would have had to call her Lena Marie!

We got to the little private hospital and the nurses took over, settling me in a warm bath attended by my female friends.  The men were told the baby would not be born for quite some time, and that they could go back to secure the boat properly and change clothes.  Little did the nurses know that the baby had different plans.

I was experiencing very little pain, and as my contractions couldn’t be felt the nurses assumed I had made the trip across the channel simply because my water had broken.  They put me in my private room with a balcony overlooking the Botanic Gardens, and I sat chatting with my friends as the sun came up.  Suddenly I knew it was time and called for the nurse, who assured me I was imagining things until I begged her to examine me. When she ran from the room shouting for the doctor I figured I was right!

I was rushed to the birthing room, and Mac arrived just in time to witness the birth of his daughter at 8:00.  She was born feet first (breech), and Mac’s eyes grew wide with wonder as her lily-white feet emerged.  That baby was so small it was like giving birth to a greased cucumber, it all happened within a matter of minutes once Dr. Cyrus got her legs turned around.  I heard him ask the nurse for the baby’s weight, and when I heard them say she only weighed four and a half pounds I remember sitting upright and saying, “keep looking Doctor!  There must be another one in there!”

That was the day my daughter Vanessa was born.  She was three weeks early, weighed four and half pounds and was absolutely beautiful.