Sixteen years ago, at this very moment (as I’m writing this, not as you’re reading it), my wife and I had arrived home after grocery shopping in the afternoon of Sunday, June 27th, 2004. That shopping trip, which would have happened sixteen years ago, earlier this afternoon, was a miserable trip for Jennie, because she was terribly uncomfortable and very pregnant with our first born child.

There was one point, during the shopping, when she sat down on an end cap shelf at the end of one of the aisles, and allowed herself a few moments of rest and relative comfort. She’d been complaining of back aches all afternoon (which were, of course, not back aches but the start of contractions, for a girl who didn’t know what contractions actually felt like), and the shopping trip ended up being too much for her, at that point.

If someone would have come up to us to say something to my wife about sitting on the end cap shelf, I would have 1) defended my wife’s decision with a bold tongue lashing, and 2) warned that person to get as far away from my wife as possible, because she would not have treated such an assailant in an appropriate manner.

Little did we know at that point that she was only twelve hours away from the start of full-on labor pains.

We put the groceries away when we got home. We would have had dinner. Basically, we did the normal things, that evening, that a young married couple would have done. We probably watched some television; in 2004, if I remember correctly (with the help of the television listings that I looked up from that year on the internet), we were watching Big Brother –because my brother and sister-in-law had gotten us interested– or we may have watched the NASCAR race that night, because we were into NASCAR back then.

Early in the morning, the next morning –the 28th of June– at about two in the morning, my wife rolled over and woke me up out of a dead sleep to ask me to give her a back rub. I rubbed her lower back for as long as I could and she fell back to sleep. Then, she woke me up thirty minutes later to ask for the same thing, which I did. Then, twenty five minutes after that –> the same thing.

It was at that point that it occurred to me that 1) she was in labor, and 2) the contractions were getting closer together. So, we got ourselves up and we called the hospital for advice. And they said, “You need to come to the hospital, right away, because she’s in labor.”

And so, we grabbed the bag that we’d packed in advance, to be ready for that point in time, and we headed to the hospital. I was, at the time, driving a Chevy Silverado truck, and Jennie, on the way to the hospital, made her way through the contractions by grabbing the handle mounted inside the cab near the door frame, used normally for pulling one’s self into the truck.

So, at this point, it is about four in the morning and we are arriving at the hospital. Do you know what the proper etiquette is for dropping your wife off at the delivery room, because I sure didn’t. Was I supposed to leave her at the door and go find a parking space, or was I supposed to make her walk with me from the parking space to the entry of the labor and delivery wing of the hospital? I didn’t know –and I can’t remember what we ended up doing– but I do remember being very stressed out about it. Also, it’s pretty easy to find a parking space at the hospital at four in the morning.

Of course, I grabbed the Hi-8 video camera that we had back then (digital video was still catching on at that point), so I could record the whole thing –there’s a video that we’ve never watched– and I set up the recording as soon as we got to the hospital (all in good taste, of course).

As it turned out, Jennie went through the whole delivery without an epidural, since we’d arrived at the hospital too far into the labor process to get one. And I stood by her side through the whole thing, and she grabbed my hand during the contractions and squeezed with the force of a vise.

If I remember correctly, we were a little worried about the fact that our doctor wasn’t at the hospital when we got there, and we got even more worried when he didn’t show up immediately thereafter. In my recollection, he showed up at the point in time when it was necessary for him to be there, and not a moment earlier.

Our son was born at about 7:30 in the morning. Of course, it’s hard to keep straight whether or not that was 7:30 Indiana time or 7:30 Michigan time, since back then, the two parts of Michiana operated in different time zones. That’s a different story, entirely.

Jennie had, at that point, been working for Notre Dame for a few years, and she used to leave for work, from our house in Michigan, at 8:30 in the morning, in order to get to work at 8:00. Try wrapping your head around that one. And, because all three of our children were born in Indiana, while we lived in Michigan, their birth certificates all have the State of Indiana listed as their birthplace.

Anyway…

Jennie was such a trooper, throughout the whole thing; I’ll never forget that she said, not long after the delivery, that she thought she could get cleaned up and head into work (for this was a Monday morning, at that point). Of course, it blew my mind that she would say such a thing right after what had happened, but she’s always been a very strong woman.

All of the family had the opportunity to come in, taking turns, to see the newest addition to the family. Jennie’s parents had been vacationing in the very northern part of the lower peninsula of Michigan when we headed into the hospital, and they made their way to the hospital from there –violating speed limits up and down the west coast of Michigan on their way– to make it to the hospital to see Garrett. My parents came in to see Garrett, and Garrett’s aunts and uncles came in to see him, as well. They all got the chance to hold him for a few moments, on that early Monday morning.

We stayed in the hospital for a few days, while Jennie recuperated and we tried to get used to the rhythm of having a newborn in our life. We had plenty of visitors during those days, and we got a lot of bouquets of flowers, from Jennie’s office and from my teacher’s union, among others. I got to change Garrett’s first diaper, sixteen years ago tomorrow.

And, as it turns out, I just changed a diaper a couple of days ago, belonging to Garrett’s cousin, who is more than fourteen years younger than he is. That child’s mother was still a single young lady when she held Garrett on the morning of his birth.

What a day!

And so, on June 28th, 2020, I will celebrate the sixteenth birthday of my one and only son. That day, so long ago and yet just hanging there in my memory, was one of the most important days of my life. I thank God for giving me such a wonderful, funny, lovable, precious boy.