My Qualifying Experiences for Mother's Day
(Note: I was going to write something specifically about my mother, but I found that I needed to take some more time to do that. I've read Isabel Wilkerson's phenomenal book, The Warmth of Other Suns , and it has given me new insights into the life my mother had to live in Leesburg, Lake County, Florida. I need more time put my thoughts together about all this.) I had been having Braxton Hicks contractions since the beginning of April. They were pretty uncomfortable, but not debilitating. I kept doing the breath exercises I had learned in Lamaze classes. The baby was due June 1, 1981, but I had been to the hospital three times, thinking I was going into labor. I walked around the grounds of the University of California at Davis Hospital, breathing and wondering how I could tell "real" labor from "false" labor. "No, Mother, it's too early," the RN told me. "You're only 2 centimeters dilated". I was sent hom...