27 years ago, November 30th, 1985 we woke to a very snowy Saturday morning! Jim and my dad were spending the day cutting a couple of trees down at the property in Tualatin that would become my parents car wash. Luckily, we had a load of wood in the back of the old pickup!
I remember feeling kinda "crampy". Tom was already over due with his due date being Nov. 16. (I had sat Jim down on the couch on Thanksgiving eve after all had left. We were waiting to head into PDX to pick up my sister who flew in from CA.) I remember sitting on the coffee table acrossed from Jim stating that if we continued to think of calling Tom the original name picked out, I would dislike him!!! Jonathan David! (Had a Jonathan in class the year before who was a big stinker. AND Jim thought it funny to say when the baby was born, "Here's Johnny!") Anyways, we agreed on the name Thomas David. Thomas is Jim's middle name AND his older brother Mike would always ask if "Tom, the turkey was out of the oven." hahaha
Back to THE event.....
That Saturday, I talked to my mom and she suspected that the event was going to happen that day! But, the contractions were just cramps. Nothing bad. More frequent as the day went on but nothing to complain about. Jim helped dad, went duck hunting, watched some football, fried oysters for dinner (uck that smell made me sick) . The snow piled up. We called the dr. The first time, the dr said it didn't sound like contractions. By the time the snow was really deep, the dr said bring her in. IN meant driving to Providence Milwaukie! We first had to deliver Christine (3yrs old) to her Godparents, Craig and Julie O'Connor but Jules called to say that the hill to there house was difficult to manuever in the snow. That left going to Charbonneau and my mom. yikes. Thank goodness for my sister! She took good care of Christine!
Finally, 8pm, Jim and I are in the old pickup with the wood heading slowly down 99E to Milwaukie. It was awesome!! So quiet, so peaceful, so beautiful out! The experience at Providence was the same. We watched tv. The hospital was quiet and basically empty. The dr was joking around with us. He was going to induce but Tom had other plans. Once Tom decided to enter the world, amidst the laughter of SNL on TV and the calmness of the world that night, he came quickly with no pain at all!!! I just remember pushing 2 or 3 times and there he was. Of course at that time, we did not know in advance if he was going to be a boy or girl. When Jimbo told me we had a son, wow. At first, I was like, what do i do with a boy?? But then, there was a sense of joy....I gave Jim a son. (like, I had anything to do with THAT! ) What a Blessing that night was!!! What a Blessing the past 27 yrs have been! WHAT A BLESSING AND JOY TOM HAS BEEN!!
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| Playing high school football with his buds during his senior year. |
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| Tom , the daredevil! Surfing on the OR coast |
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| He loves Snowboarding at Timberline! |
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| He loves 4-wheeling in his "Jamie" in the snow |
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| Father like son? Digging dad out of the snow! |
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| The deer slayer!! |
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| The college track star |
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| Always a jokester |
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| Halloween costume while working at T-Way |
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| Silly bro and sis |
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| the tender side!! Helping escort a kindergartener on the hike |
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| the outdoorsman. |
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| Fishing at his favorite spot, Olallie Lake. So many happy camping memories since early childhood to now were made up there. |
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| And, my handsome son! |
You are very very special!!!
Happy Birthday Tom!!!
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