Letter from Mommy

Fifty years ago!!!
I remember it well. We were living in Bell, California in a little 2 bedroom apartment at 6524 B Loma Vista Place. (Karl and Diana LeSueur also lived in the same little apartment complex.)

I was expecting you sometime around 27 March 1958. On Dec 26, 1957, I began hemorrhaging. Fortunately, I had elected to go to Dr Richard Clark who was the head of obstetrics at Hollywood Presbyterian Hospital. He was highly recommended and was LDS. However, it was about a 45 minute drive each way. I don’t remember if he had me come into the office or not. My memory is fuzzy on that. He did tell me that I most likely had Placenta Previa and that I would need to stay down as long as possible. If I could just make it to 34 weeks that the chances of survival for the baby would be greater. My mother came to help and the sisters of the Relief Society were there a lot. On the morning of Feb 11, 1958,1 got out of bed to go to the bathroom and hemorrhaged a large amount of blood. Craig called Dr Clark and he told us to get to the hospital as quickly as possible. We had the old Chevy station wagon at the time and Dr Clark told Craig to make a bed for me in the back and that I was not to sit up at all. With ‘break neck’ speed, Craig got me there and they took me in for an emergency C section.

At the time, Dr Clark was one of the few doctors who was doing a low horizontal incision rather than a vertical incision. The reason being that any future pregnancies would be less likely to rupture the uterus. He told me I would be able to wear a bikini again, too!! Yeah, sure.

They immediately gave me demerol and an epidural. Not many doctors were trained to administer epidurals at that time. He was one of the few. I was awake during the surgery and Dr Clark said I could watch in the mirror above the operating table if I wanted to. That wasn’t too appealing to me, so I declined. I could feel a lot of pulling and pushing going on but otherwise felt fine. I did hear the doctors conversation as they were delivering you. They commented that the umbilical cord was unusually small, about the size of a pencil. One doctor wondered if you might have been oxygen deprived. I think you just conserved your energy because you were very quiet in the womb. They certainly didn’t need to worry about your lack of oxygen —just look at you now and how smart you are!! I told everyone that the Lord wanted you here for a purpose and that you would probably be another David 0 McKay (or at least a Bishop).

You were pretty big for being 7 weeks early. They didn’t weigh you for a few days because you were so fragile. I think they told us that it would be “touch and go” for awhile until they could get you stabilized. We had to leave you in the hospital and in an incubator for 16 days! That was the hard part, especially since we only had one car and we lived so far away. So if you have had any “bonding” issues with your parents that may be the reason why. Hospitals weren’t allowing fathers in delivery rooms or parents in the incubator rooms.

We were left with a hospital bill of $2000 and NO insurance. You were worth every penny!!

We are so grateful that you were sent to us. You are truly a gift from our Father in Heaven. It was a miracle that we both survived. Dr Clark told me that I had lost over 1000 cc of blood and that he had only had one other patient in 10y that had lost that much and survived.

We love you and the wonderful wife you have chosen and our lovely granddaughters!!

PS Karl LeSueur still teases me to this day about the hemorrhaging. We were at their apartment that night playing Hearts when it started. I was losing so he said I had to do this extreme thing to get out of playing with them.