You know me, I can’t tell one story without including a bunch of others and this one will will be no different. My girlfriend had left with her father to New Zealand where her uncle had been a missionary with the Morman Church for I don’t know how long. They had been gone for several months leaving me alone in our apartment at Rumble Weed Apartments where I carried on with buisiness almost as usual; I had a job as a production technician at Colorado Crystal Corporation building quartz crystal oscillators and working in the the chemical labs desposing of highly dangerous and toxic substances.
I, we (my ole lady) both had awesome jobs, oodles of friends and a notoriety for being top of our fields in the counter culture. I had a band, my own vehicle, plenty of cash in my pockets and I’ve written quite candidly about my officially disclosed “histrionic polysubstance abuse” with unflattering honesty. Well, as stated Melissa and her father (future Bishop of the Mormon Church and loaded with cash from his electronics company, Arrakis Systems) had been gone several months and when they returned Melissa’s belly was swollen from the bun in the oven. In fact she returned from New Zealand about seven and a half months pregnant…
… pregnant, which scared the bajebbies out of me. My childhood was tramatic to put it mildly, my parents were (God Bless them,) preoccupied with their own bulshit and both crazy in their own ways; my father was an honorably discharged veteran with two principles:
- Do what you will and hope for the best, and you can’t go so far and not go further (vices and addictions and mental instability)
My mother had two principles as well;
- God knows everything your father has done and so you should feel guilty and ashamed for having been born of your father and you’ll grow up to be just like him
Not wanting that for my own child, not having ever even discussed having children with Melissa a’tall during the four years we’s already been together… I was terrified! We went to one lamazz class where we both felt extremely far behind, I were pressured and rushed into marriage and I was pressured into converting to Mormon, being baptized in the Mormaon Church and drastically ceased my “poly-substance” usage for a time which might have killed me (some shit you can’t simply quit cold turkey without risking serious withdrawal symptoms upto and including death.)
Fortunately the pediatrician we acquired was chill and at the time while I did everything except drink and smoke cigarettes and Melissa as far as I knew hab been clean for several months (New Zealand with her dad,) but she was still a smoker and the doctor told us smoking herb wouldn’t cause any harm to the baby.
Welletsy, it was Christmas Eve, 2020, and Fart Collins was in the middle of a blizzard when Mel instructed me to venture forth and brave the elements to aquire maxi pads… unusual yeah but she was the love of my life and when she asked I abided regardless the absurdity and thus did venture forth into the frozen town at 2am Christmas morning whilest Santa was making his rounds knowing that nothing was open and I was waisting my time and risking my life… but hey, I survived the withdrawls and I hadn’t drowned during the baptism nor burst into flames when the Elders performed the “Laying of the Hands” to impart the Holy Spirit (I’ll delve into that charlantry another time…)
And so it came to pass that with my mission a failure I stopped at a pay phone and called Mel to let her know and she informed me that she was ready to go to PVH… her water had broken. I failed to mention that I was sicker than hell with bronchitius at the time (not to mention all the physical and mental exaustion for the whole ordeal was … taxing,) and when I returned to our apartment to get her I found that she had destroyed every time-piece and clock in the place…. the clock in the micro wave, the one in the oven, the alarm clock by the bed, both of our pagers, it was kinda crazy.
We make it to PVH and I pulled upto the emergency room entrance and put Mel into a wheelchair and rushed her inside to where a lone nurse hurridly rushed around. She quickly explained that the phone systems were down and they couldn’t make calls outside the hospital (we weren’t expecting for another three weeks and our doctor wasn’t there.) She went on to state t’was one student doctor on staff and he was busy helping the only other nurse with another woman whom was in the process of giving birth.
I run out to park the car and when I get back in I’m handed a pair of rubber gloves, a face mask and then told I’d have to deliver the baby… seriously? I’d never even held a baby! And then, and then and I swear this is the God’s Honest truth I’m lead into a delivery room with a woman whose legs are wide apart, crowning, with four kids standing around and none of them are people I’ve ever seen before.
I had to explain to the nurse three times as this strange lady was “ooooh ooooh heeeeehhhhh, ooooh ooooh heeeee I am breathing you bitch!) doing her thing, “That’s not my wife and these aren’t my kids.” The other nurse peaked suddenly into that delivery room realizing the confusion and lead me by the hand out into the hallway explaining that there were two Mrs. Freemans here giving birth now and so I followed her to the next delivery room down the hall. “Melissa is ten centimeters dialated and the baby is on the way… go wash your hands and put these fresh gloves on… you’ll have to deliver the baby while I run the machines…”
Wtf wtf wtf….. I was sick as hell and didn’t know squat about babies (aside from how they’re made) let alone how to bring one into the world. But I stepped up to my wife like a champ whom had no time for an epidural and I’ll confess with all due humility that I didn’t know babies could be born with hair on their heads already and tears streamed down my face as I saw the top of my daughters head and thought, OH My God my sins have come to bare!!! She’s a freak! Thank God for his bountiful mercy because right then the student doctor came in to assist me. The first word my daughter ever heard was her mother screaming out “FUUUCK!” with the push that completed the process.
I wiped the mess from my baby daughter and cut the ombilical chord and went to the bathroom to wash my hands. I crumpled to the floor and wept like a little girl for probably ten minutes while the student doctor and the nurse did whatever gets done those first few moments of a newborn’s life. We had a healthy baby girl, weigh-in 5.2 lbs with a head full of blondish brown hair born at 9:42am Christmas morning. I held her in my one arm, she fit snuggly nestled between my wrist and my elbow as though she were custom designed for it.
I named her Evelyn (Εβελίνα, pernounced Ef-tee-hee-oh-ss in Greek) and Mel and I decided on Willow for her middle name.