My great-granddaughter, the first one in a new generation in our family, Mackenzie Loecher, was born Oct. 17. She is really different from this family of blue-eyed redheads and blondes. She has very dark eyes and hair. We shall probably “mirate” over her for a long time to come.
My first thought was that I had never had a baby that little, but her birth weight says I did. They just look like incredibly little human beings, don’t they? Mackenzie did especially because they had her lying on what looked like a tray resting on that long serving table beside her mother’s bed. In fact, she looked as if she might be a wrapped-up bird about to be served en croute. The terrible things you think!
She seemed very placid, very serene, however. I hope she will stay that way for her parents’ sake. They were kicked out of the hospital the next day, even after a section. Back when my children were born, we stayed in the hospital a week and held court. Friends came to see us, brought gifts and looked at the babies through a protective glass picture window separating the babies’ nursery from the germ-bearing public. Daddies and friends hovered around the window pointing out their babies. Looking at the new babies was a kind of entertainment for hospital visitors and any workers who could spare a few seconds every now and then. After all, they were “on stage” for about a week.
Frankly, I liked that a lot better than what they do now. They shove even the post-section mothers out before they can catch their breath, much less recover. We have a population that can keep up with the Chinese peasants in Pearl Buck’s “The Good Earth,” who gave birth in the fields, arose and kept on working.
I think it is all because of insurance. No one involved with the physical process has any say-so in the matter. Neither patient’s condition nor physician’s compassion matters one whit.
Mackenzie Loecher has long gone home now. She has even paid a visit to her grandparents. To their credit, they have invested in some kind of contraption that apparently can serve as bed, bassinet, playpen or bathtub. I think it takes an engineer like her granddaddy to work the thing. We live in a “Brave New World” like Aldous Huxley’s. This whole process is taking me back to the literature of the ’20s, before I was born.
Still, she seems to thrive. I do not know about the parents.
One thing is sure, thank God. Life goes on. I pray her life will be blessed with peace, health and prosperity. I know it is a lot to ask.
Betty Boyls Stone is a freelance writer, who grew up in and lives in Columbus.
The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.
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