1983

Twenty-five years ago about this time of day, I was struggling to get out of bed after having spent about 8 hours flat on my back to avoid an after surgery headache. Oh yes, and I was trying to hold my stomach together. Oh, enough about me.

Twenty-five years ago today, we held our baby girl, Cassia, for the first time.

Cassia's delivery was a planned C-section, so early on June 3, I was rolled into a surgery room and prepped for the procedure. I said good-bye to Bob, as he learned from our first delivery, that he could not be in the delivery room without requiring medical attention of his own. One of the nurses took over for him and kept me talking and telling me what was going on. She asked me if I knew whether the baby was a boy or girl. I didn't know, we decided to wait and not get that news until the big day. She said, "well, you are going to have a girl, because this is my daughter's birthday and I just know it."

Dr. Quinn had also declared that the baby was a girl a week earlier in his office. He was telling me how the baby was positioned, and as he was pushing around on my stomach, he said, "it's a girl, she just kicked me when I put my hand on her butt." I know that was a bit sexist, but it was still the '80s.

An anesthesiologist talked to me during the surgery, and everything went fine. Seems just a few minutes and there she was. The pediatrician was there and took over caring for her. I was watching him and could hear her crying a little. Then he turned and gave me a thumbs up signal from across the room. She was fine.

We had not picked any names in advance for any of our children. We always thought we better have a look at the baby first before we put a name on it. It took us a few days to come up with Cassia's name. We wanted something like Cassie, but that was not formal enough, and we didn't want to put Cassandra on the little girl, so Bob came up with Cassia. It is the Latin name for a flower. And if you write her name, Bob wants it spelled correctly as Cassia. Not Cassie.

We stayed in the hospital for nearly a week. In the middle of the night, the nurses would bring the babies to the mothers for feeding. One night I could hear them wheeling those hospital baby beds down the hall, and one baby was screaming so loud. The wheels kept rolling faster and faster and the screaming got louder and louder. I was waking up and thinking, "boy, I wonder where that kid is going." Then the thought occurred to me, "it could come here." and sure enough, it was our sweet little baby girl. She was hungry and not shy about it.

Cassia was a pretty quiet baby at home. She just looked at us, made her demands, and slept when she was supposed to. We all adored her.

A few years later, we are attending the PT conference with Cassie's Kindergarten teacher, and the first thing this woman said was, "Cassie is an enigma" What did that mean? She couldn't label her. She could not tell what was on this little girl's mind. Well, that woman was pretty much right. This is still true today.
And not having a label, well that's not bad at all.

Cassia was very studious, and liked to draw. We have great memories of weekends spent on a dance recital every June. She is an artist, having received many awards for her talent.

Today she is a hard working young woman with a child of her own, and house of her own, with a pretty dog, and a nice cat. We are proud of her.

Happy Birthday Cass.