My Mother’s Instinct

My father was trying to figure out how to break the law on Monday and get away with it.

            Then my mother got up the Friday before and said, “I had a dream last night.”

            My father’s predicament wasn’t as strange as it sounds. He was an electrician at an Illinois university at a time when it was illegal in that state to strike against a public entity. But the electricians were paid so much less than those working for private companies in the area that they decided they had to go ahead and take the risk of being fired and perhaps prosecuted.

            My father was torn. He didn’t want to be fired or wind up in jail. He had started his career at the university only a few years earlier, and working there for at least 15 years was his only hope of a comfortable retirement. But he agreed that something had to be done to get the attention of the people who had ignored their requests for equitable pay. What to do?

            He asked my mother what she had dreamed.

            “I dreamed that Angela had her baby. We have to go to Atlanta.”

            Hubby and I had been married a couple of years when he graduated from college and found a job as an aircraft electronics repairman. About six months later, he was recruited by a large manufacturer of aircraft to teach electronics to some of their customers. We moved to Atlanta, where we knew absolutely no one, three months before our first child, and my parents’ first grandchild, was due.

            “She’s not due for another month,” said my father.

            “I know, but I have a funny feeling.”

            My father went to work that day and requested a week of vacation because his wife had “a funny feeling” about their eight-months-pregnant daughter in Atlanta. His boss chuckled and made some wisecrack about “women’s intuition.”

            I had spent Saturday afternoon shopping and was absolutely exhausted. I was so big that people asked me if I was expecting twins or triplets, and the baby—the doctor assured me there was only one in there—was so active even the doctor remarked about it. After a light supper, I went to lie down and watch my stomach bounce while I tried to rest.

            About 8 o’clock, my parents knocked on the door. They hadn’t bothered to let us know they were coming, and when my mother explained why, I laughed. “You’ll just have to come back next month.” I was sitting on the sofa eating one of the donuts they’d picked up on the way when my water broke.

            By six, my pains were three minutes apart, and we all piled into the car and headed for the hospital through an early morning ice storm, my mother timing my contractions while Hubby tried to concentrate on driving.  Turned out there was no hurry, though. Our daughter wasn’t born till 4:30. She still had fuzz on her face, but she weighed more than six pounds and was already trying to lift her head to look around.

            And because my mother’s intuition told her she should come to Atlanta four weeks early, and her instinct told her she should pay attention, she was able to hold her first grandchild on the day she was born.

copyright 2011 Angela Parson Myers