Daughter-"Linda Sue, our second, was born very easily and quickly June 28, 1962. I was having diarrhea and a stomach ache early in the evening so the Doctor sent me medication and told me to go right to bed. About midnight I couldn't sleep and I had such a cramping so the Doctor told me to come in to the hospital and he would look in on me in the morning. He had scheduled July 5th for the Cesarean and this was supposedly two weeks before the baby was due!
While driving to the hospital I had two sharp pains. When I got there and the nurse checked me, everyone went in to a panic. She said the baby was almost there and I was due for a Cesarean! This could be very dangerous because if the sutures tore the baby would surely die and possibly me. They prepared me quickly but when the Doctor arrived all he did is help the baby be born. There was no time for anything else. It was a very easy birth but I tore a lot and the stitches below were far worse than the stitches on my tummy the last time. I was thrilled to have a baby girl and the Doctor was delighted to deliver just what I had wanted. Now, how would Johnny like her???"
I had changed Doctors this time and I really liked Dr. Rust--after my next three births he would say each of my births had had some unpredictable happening about them. So what happened to those easy births I had anticipated like my Mom's?
"At least I didn't have to stay in the hospital so long this time. And Carole was out of school so she took care of Johnny. Oh those stitches though! Carole and her friend Jean drove me to the Dr's office for my first check up. I was sitting in the back of Jean's Volkswagen and I will never forget that miserable trip!
Other than that though, all went very well. Linda took to a pacifier very easily, in fact we would go no where without it! Johnny was not jealous at all and could keep himself very busy playing with his toys and by now he liked to sit and watch the television, too. We also had built a sand box outside and he loved that."
These are the Smith children with him, visiting from Texas the following year. As you can see, he still loved the sand box. Johnny was always busy doing something interesting.
"We did not go to Vegas, the more I thought about it the worse it sounded and I felt if we rushed over so soon after Scott's death it would be for emotional reasons rather than clear thinking. It was totally my fault we did not go but I felt very sure it was the right thing for our marriage to stay in San Diego." I am not exactly sure why I would say that, but it was evidently how I felt. I was concerned about my relationship with Vida maybe. I did not appreciate her as much in my early married life as I did later when I was not so intimidated by her.
By now they had transferred us to the 10th Ward as we were living in our new home in University City and I was called to work in the Primary. As I recall I would drop off my ironing and baby Linda at a Sister's house and pick them both up on the way home. I did pay her for doing the ironing, of course. It was mostly Richard's shirts.
Primary-This was the first time I had ever worked in Primary and I was teaching a large class. I was surprised how difficult it was to keep order. Then an older woman would sit in with us and take one out occasionally to talk with them and that helped. I really liked the Inservice meetings which were held at night once a month. These women were so spiritual and I learned so much from them.
Baby Linda loved to watch Johnny and imitate what he was doing. He liked being the 'director' of everything and that was OK with her.
Baby Linda did not nurse as long as Johnny did but she liked all baby food given to her. But she also wanted that 'Binky' with her at all times and we complied. Many times we would drive back home to get it, if we had forgotten it.
I like this picture.
Linda didn't get any hair for the longest time, I wonder why I didn't put a bonnet on her? We didn't have the cute bands and flowers then. When her hair finally did come in, it was thick and beautiful just as my neighbor said it would be.
Exploratory Surgery-Except for the bladder infections Linda would get, she was an extremely happy baby. At 17 months, I believe, they did exploratory surgery to see what the problem was and found she had a double kidney on one side. This made the tubes very tiny and extremely subject to infection. This would plague her for many years but the doctor said she would never have to serve in the military because of it--other than that there was no advantage to the extra kidney as far as I know. The nurses at the hospital were very impressed that she could sit on the potty and go tinkle by herself. They were not good with explanations at the hospital and when they wheeled her away on a cart I was following and shut the elevator door in my face, I had such a panicky and helpless feeling. It was also interesting that they kept very little covering on the babies in the cribs but had a net over the top.
As I say, Linda learned everything very easily and liked taking care of herself. She would always be the one who knew where everyone's shoes were and was like a little mother. She was not so cautious and she did take a few tumbles when she was learning to walk. As I recall we used the walker.
We had a marvelous pediatrician, Dr. Peterson, and he could be called any time day or night and would talk to me. Once Linda had the infection in Silver Gate and he called in a prescription to my brother in Glendive and Dick brought it to us since they were headed for the cabin anyway. Linda could get very high fevers (105) and he had taught us to wrap her in a tepid water soaked towel to get her fever down.
