I was so excited to be pregnant with Katie. I had always wanted more children. But to be fair, there are 10 years between Carilynn and Katie. And if it hadn’t have been for my older children I don’t think I could have survived having a newborn. I had had a hard pregnancy with Carilynn but didn’t expect one with Katie. I was wrong. The doctor put me to bed long before I was 6 months pregnant. At first, I loved all of the pampering. But after about a week it just started to get old.
I was due to have Katie on May 7th. The doctor told me that there was no way I would make it that far. She told me we would do everything we could to get her as close as possible but to be prepared at any time. About a week before she was born I started having some breathing issues and found out that I had pneumonia. The doctor decided to put me in the hospital. She wanted me well so that I could go through labor. She started pumping me with antibiotics and breathing treatments. I was feeling a lot better and was sure she would let me go home to wait out the final few days of my pregnancy. Honestly, I wanted to be home for Derby. The doctor had other plans.
Friday morning she came into my hospital room and told me that they had been monitoring my contractions and thought it better to move me to labor and delivery. She was going to start a low dose of pitocin and see how I progressed. So that’s what we did. We called everybody and said we would have a baby soon. I labored all day. Even though I was making progress throughout the day I just wasn’t moving very fast. The doctor came in three or four times to check on me. When she came in after her office hours I told her she needed to break my water. I told her that would do it. She wasn’t sure but I finally talked her into it.
Things began to progress quickly once she broke my water but not as quickly as I would have liked. But things were happening. Oh, this was about the time that Jimmy went home to milk cows. I couldn’t believe he was going to leave me while I was in full-fledged labor to go home and milk the cows. I think he and the doctor were in cahoots. I told him that I had left my rosary at home and would he bring it to me when he came back.
By the time he got back I was really in labor. And I wasn’t nice about it. I have never been a good patient and I was really not a good patient during this time. I ended up with two nurses with me and I don’t want to say that I was mean to them. I just wasn’t nice to them. I was mean to Jimmy. He couldn’t do anything right. He told me that he couldn’t find my rosary when he went home so Jay offered up his. I took that rosary and threw it at Jimmy and told him he had better start praying because I was getting ready to kill him. Oh, and that I was going to name the baby after his father.
We didn’t know if this baby was a boy or a girl. I never found out the sex of any of my children. And yet, I knew. I don’t know how but I just knew. I would have been shocked if I had been wrong. I don’t know why. But we had a girl’s name picked out but did not have a boy’s name at all. We were toying with the name John but Jimmy said absolutely not. Besides his dad he had a nephew named John. But I knew it was a girl.
I don’t remember what time of the night it was but they finally told me that I could start pushing. We were right at 10 cm and that baby should pop right out. Well, she didn’t. I don’t know how long I pushed but it became very clear that baby wasn’t coming out. After careful discussion, we agreed that a c-section was the way to go. I wasn’t thrilled with that but I was done with the pregnancy and was ready to meet my new baby. Unfortunately, the doctor had to do an emergency c-section first so we were put on the back burner. The nurses told me I didn’t need to push anymore. I told them it felt better when I pushed so that’s what I did, until the doctor came back in and said we were ready for my c-section.
When we got into surgery I thought it was taking a long time to get to the baby. I couldn’t figure out what they were doing. And I was too tired to worry about it. Finally, she told me that there would be some pressure and she pulled out my little bundle of joy. She said “it’s a girl”. Jimmy immediately corrected her and said “It’s a Katie”. He was in heaven!
We had decided on the name “Katie” early in the pregnancy. I had always wanted a daughter named Scarlet but decided that just wasn’t the type of name to give my daughter. Everyone would know why. So, the next best thing is Katie, right? “Katie Scarlet”, you know. But, that couldn’t be her real name. She needed a formal name. So that was Katharine. With an “a”. That’s the way that Katharine Graham, from the Washington Post, spelled her name. Another strong woman. Her middle name is Ruth, after Jimmy’s mom. I always liked that name and it seemed to go with Katie (although over the years I’ve modified it to be Katie Ru, or Katie Roo). She has another middle name, as all my children do, of “Pierce”. That is my maiden name, my daddy’s name and I wanted them to have that little bitty part of my family. And then, Elder, of course, for her daddy. And I thought it would be cool to have a daughter named “Katie Elder”, after the John Wayne movie, “The Sons of Katie Elder”. You can’t imagine the people who ask me if I’ve ever seen that movie. Katie was mad the first time she watched it and realized Katie Elder is dead in the beginning of the movie. I digress. So, Katharine Ruth Pierce Elder, or Katie Elder for short. I loved that name. And I immediately loved that baby girl.
Oh, and, Katie was born on Derby Day. As the day progressed, and all of the family came to see this new addition, I kept saying, in my drug-induced recovery, “I need a mint julep. Somebody place a bet for me. Which horses are running? I need a program.” They told me that I couldn’t drink since I was taking morphine. I kept saying that I would share if someone would just bring me a mint julep.
It was the best Derby Day I’ve ever had. I was a winner on Derby Day.