NOTE 1: If you would prefer to listen, click here for an audio version of this blog post. When prompted, click the following: Photo 1 Photo 2 Photo 3 Photo 4 Photo 5 Photo 6 Photo 7 Photo 8 Photo 9
NOTE 2: If you missed Part 1: INTRO & an evening at Casa Bonita, click here.
Early Saturday afternoon, October 5, 2024, I drove out to Lutheran Medical Center, on 38th Street in Wheat Ridge, a suburb on the west side of Denver. Both of our children were born there, Alison in December 1981 and Travis in November 1985. Joanna’s obstetrician, for both births, was Dr. John Hutto.
Nothing stays the same after 40 years, does it? When I arrived, I discovered all entrances blocked, and signs stating that the hospital had recently moved to a nearby location, also in Wheat Ridge. As the whole place was abandoned, with no other traffic, etc., I had free rein to park for a few minutes and walk around, taking pictures and remembering.
We first learned that Joanna was pregnant during her visit to the doctor on April 9, 1981. I remember our calling Mother and Daddy that evening to give them the exciting news. That weekend, we took a little trip west of Denver to Glenwood Springs, a resort town, to celebrate our coming parenthood. (A few months after Joanna passed away, I started going through the many photo albums she had filled years ago, looking specifically for pictures from our weekend in Glenwood Springs. Regrettably, I’ve never been able to find even one reminder of that weekend.)
On July 25, 1981, just short of 4 months before Joanna’s due date of November 20, our visiting family members went out to Lutheran and took pictures – with a very pregnant Joanna – in front of the entrance. The first picture shows: Back, L-R – my niece, Stephanie McCown; my mother, Vivian Jones; my sister, Patsy McCown; Joanna’s mom, Tseng Ching Hok; me; my brother-in-law, Palmer McCown; Front, L-R – Joanna’s niece, Wyman Soo; my nephew, Michael McCown; Joanna’s nephew, Wilkie Soo; Joanna. The second picture shows Joanna’s mom between the two of us.
Alison was born on December 1, 11 days past Joanna’s due date. Mother had come up from Texas to be with us for the birth. Around 3 a.m. on December 1, Joanna woke me with the news that her water had just broken. Contrary to all of the sitcoms showing the prospective parents rushing around, running into each other, the husband rushing out of the house and leaving his wife behind (I Love Lucy), Joanna and I were both very laid-back and calm. After all, we had had 11 extra days of timing contractions and preparing ourselves for this moment.
First of all, there was no way Joanna was going to go to the hospital looking like she had just gotten out of bed! She wanted to take a shower, fix her hair, and whatever else our wives do to make themselves beautiful for the outside world. While she did that, I went downstairs, turned on the TV, and watched Bob Hope & Bing Crosby in Road to Morocco. Nobody does “laid-back” like me! Around 5:30 a.m., Joanna called Dr. Hutto’s office to tell him that her water had broken, and he instructed us to head for the hospital.
However, I needed to make a stop on the way. Since October, I had been a supervisor in the Mountain Bell Accounting Department. My assistant – whose title was supervisory clerk – resented me, because she had expected to get that supervisor job. In just 2 months, I had already had to defend myself in meetings with union reps and an investigator from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. (See Part 11 for more details.) So I had a special file in my desk documenting dealings regarding this employee. On the way to the hospital, it struck me that she might very well go snooping through my desk and compromise that file, so it was imperative that I stop at the office and lock my desk. (As it was well before 7, when employees would arrive, I could do so without attracting any attention.) Believe me, Joanna never let me forget about this detour on the way to having our first baby!
It took most of the day, but Alison finally arrived – at 5:48 p.m. Happily for me, by this era fathers had finally been permitted in the delivery room, so I got to see our baby daughter emerge from the birth canal and into Dr. Hutto’s capable hands. However, it was also still in an era where we did not discover the baby’s gender until she was born. It was a surprise – either way would have been a welcome one! Daddy flew in that evening to join Mother in greeting their new granddaughter. Here are two snapshots taken in Joanna’s hospital room hours after Alison’s birth: (1) the new mom and our baby girl; and (2) Joanna & me with Alison; then, two photos taken outside the entrance later that week, as we prepared to take Alison home for the first time: (1) Joanna & Mother; and (2) Joanna & me with our new baby.
By the time Travis was born in 1985, I was working in the Mountain Bell Corporate office in downtown Denver, as a 1st-level manager serving as liaison/support to the Accounting office. As Joanna’s due date approached, one of the 2nd-level managers, Clydene Attaway, lent me her pager to make it easier for Joanna to notify me when the time came.
Travis arrived on November 25, a day ahead of Joanna’s due date. Mother and Daddy were already up from Texas when Travis was born. I was getting lunch in the office cafeteria when the pager started beeping. I immediately went up to my office, where I discovered a message from Daddy, saying that he and Mother had just taken Joanna to the hospital, so I left work to meet them there. Travis was born at 6:24 that evening. Again, I was able to witness the birth of our new baby, and we were both thrilled to now have both a daughter and a son! Here are two snapshots of Joanna and Alison (with her new “baby brudder,” as she put it): (1) in Joanna’s hospital room, hours after Travis’s birth; and (2) outside the hospital entrance.
There is one story that Joanna and I haven’t told much, or talked about much, over the years – probably because, though it brought us sadness at the time, that sadness was far overshadowed, just over a year later, by the happy news of Travis’s birth. I’m referring to a miscarriage that Joanna suffered in September 1984. I don’t recall how far along she was in her pregnancy, but it couldn’t have been very far along. One day in September, she called me at the office. She was worried, because she was “spotting.” I don’t even recall the trip to the doctor after that, though I know I would have gone with her; there’s no way I would have let her go by herself.
Anyway, it turned out, as the doctor told us, that the fetus had simply never developed. He said that it was little more than random tissue. I’m no doctor – I didn’t understand that then, and I don’t understand it now. Joanna and I were both stunned and saddened. It was strange. There was no body to grieve. I told this story to some friends recently, and one asked me a question I had never considered before: “Did this cause you to question the pro-lifers’ contention that life begins at conception?” Well, now that I think about it, yes, definitely.
We had to go to the hospital for the doctor to remove the tissue matter from Joanna’s uterus. Strangely, though there was no body to grieve, though there had been no birth, though the pregnancy had not gone very far, nevertheless, our mood was somber as we drove to the hospital that day. Both of us felt as if we were going to a funeral.
We still wanted a second child, so we resumed trying over the next few months. Thanks be to God, in the spring of 1985 we discovered that Joanna was pregnant again, and Travis was born on November 25. This put the events of September 1984 in a whole new perspective. We wouldn’t take anything for Travis. That 1984 pregnancy just wasn’t meant to be. 1985, instead, was to be our year of jubilee.