The moment we\u2019ve all been waiting for: the baby is born! (That\u2019s me!)<\/p>\r\n
After you read this letter: For more notes about my middle name and other related topics, see the 2015 blog post<\/a> where I first posted about these letters.<\/p>\r\n Note: Contains fairly detailed descriptions of childbirth. Also, this was written two days after Martin Luther King was assassinated; there's a reference to the 1968 Washington, D.C. riots<\/a>.<\/p>\r\n The link that I added on the phrase \u201cfamily portrait\u201d goes to a copy of the image in question, which I posted on Facebook a couple years ago. I believe it\u2019s visible to anyone, even if you don\u2019t have a Facebook account.<\/p>\r\n (For more about my birth, see Peter\u2019s FBI file<\/a>.)<\/p>\r\n <\/p>\r\n <\/p>\r\n Postmark: Apr 8, 1968, Mendocino, CA. Handwritten: “Rec\u2019d this 4\/11\/68” and “Ans. this 4\/18-4\/19\/68.”<\/p>\r\n\r\n
\r\n Saturday, 6
March<\/strike> [pencil: April, '68]\r\n\r\nDear Granma an Granpa (or would you prefer -maw and -paw?),\r\n\r\nAt last a letter. I've written it in my head a dozen times,\r\nbut it's truly been impossible. The first two days after Jed\r\nwas born, Peter was sick with an allergic reaction to some\r\npollen he ate accidently in a honeycomb, then it turned into\r\na cold and I caught it and Jed caught it and we were all an\r\nexhausted mess. We hadn't gotten enough sleep the night\r\nbefore he was born, as he wasn't really expected any more,\r\nand then I never recognized the earliest contractions that I\r\nhad all day Wednesday, and that's when you're supposed to\r\nsleep, and by the time I did get to sleep Wednesday night, I\r\nhad about 10 minutes before the next stage set in and I had\r\nto be awake to control them. And then I had two days of\r\ncomparative rest x till the milk came in and the cold got\r\nworse, and then Jed was up every few hours and because of\r\nthe cold wasn't getting enough milk so he would nurse for an\r\nhour and then sleep for two and then want more, and all in\r\nall it has been very strange, and totally\r\nexhausting......then on Thursday everything got better all\r\nat once, The vaporizer we'd gotten began to work right, and\r\npeople began producing a number of home remedies to make the\r\nmilk come in (brewers yeast, tea, massage, breast pump,\r\netc)--last night we nearly drowned in it over night, and\r\nI've been thinking about the waste of good milk from the\r\ndrips when he nurses (as you may not recall, one breast\r\ndrips while the other is being sucked) and from just plain\r\noverflow during his nearly four hours of sleep (most x of\r\nthe time, anyway) so this morning I taped plastic baggies\r\nover the nipples till he woke up, and then left one on while\r\nhe nursed the other side (he takes it in snacks, xxx a few\r\nminutes on and a few minutes off, or falls asleeep at the\r\nnipple and has to be jostled gently to continue sucking) and\r\ngot 3½ ounces of milk, to use as x a\r\nbetween-feeding-supplement or drink myself....there are\r\nplaces you can sell it for fantastic amounts of money, but\r\nnone around here. Peter once saw a quart of human milk in a\r\nhealth foods store in New York for $8.\r\n\r\nPeter has been doing a fantastic amount of work, cooking and\r\ncleaning up and doing laundry and making the bed and such\r\nthings, and I have been sitting and feeding Jed and very\r\nlittle else. The woman he has been working for (the widow of\r\nthe seismologist who died not long ago) said her garden\r\ncould do without him for a while, so he has been home and\r\nrunning around busily all week, doing beautiful wonderful\r\nthings. He decided to write to his parents finally, xxxxxxx\r\nas we feel so fine and expansive and we want everyone to\r\nknow about Jed, and he is their first grandchild, and there\r\nis no real point to being cold and unpleasant to them just\r\nbecause they have been so to us. So we sent them some\r\npictures and hope for a least a warm reply.\r\n\r\nAh, the pictures! We are most impressed--they were taken on\r\nJed's third day out in the world, by our next-door neighbor,\r\nand he printed them as a birth- celebration present, hoping\r\nthe delighted [inserted handwritten: parents &] grandparents\r\nwould perhaps order a print or two.... xxxxxxxxxxx as you\r\ncan see, the prints are cropped and much more beautiful than\r\nthe proofs would indicate...I'm keeping one of me nursing\r\nhim (#5) much lightened and enlarged, and a much larger one\r\nof the \"family portrait<\/a>\" that you have, the one that's\r\nmounted on white. Peter things he looks terrible and I look\r\ngreat, I think I look terrible and he looks great, and\r\neveryone xxxx else who's seen them says \"the three of you\r\nare terribly photogenic\"---guess that's how it is with\r\npictures.\r\n\r\n[handwritten: prob will send picts by reg. mail]\r\n\r\nJed doesn't look xx quite so terribly impressive by now, as\r\nhe strongly resembles every other 9-day-old baby in the\r\nworld, full of milk and gurgles. He had almost pointy ears\r\nfor the first few days, hut doesn't any more, his hair is\r\ngrowing slowly, he spits up real good, his bowel movements\r\nare the prettiest golden color, he wails as loud as anyone\r\nelse, has a stirringly beautiful reflex smile, and both of\r\nhis second toes (next to big toe) are funny-crooked--Peter\r\nhas the same toes, says they run in his mother's family.\r\n\r\nAs for names---it was very strange that you settled on\r\nElizabeth...I was always xxxx kind of awed by your mother,\r\nfrom the one picture I saw of her, she was so stately and\r\nbeautiful.....but the wierd part is that there had been a\r\nname in Peter's head for a couple of weeks, that we had\r\ndecided might be a good middle name anyway, and we couldn't\r\nfigure out where it had come from--now we realize you and he\r\nread each othrers' minds over time and space--so Jed's full\r\nname is Jedediah Elysdir Hartman.\r\n\r\n(Had you decided to stick with wanting to name him after\r\n\"Grandpop Harry Sachs\" [handwritten: sorry: Sax] (which is\r\nwhat I used to think of him as, I remember) we would have\r\nspelled it Hare, which is the first part of a beautiful\r\nIndian prayer, which simply says\r\n\r\nHare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna\r\nHare Hare, Hare Hare\r\nHare Rama, Hare Rama, Hare Rama\r\nHare Hare, Hare Hare\r\nKrishna Krishna\r\nHare Hare\r\n\r\nand is repeated over and over---Krishna and Rama xxx are two\r\nnames for manifestations of the same deity, Hare (pronounced\r\nHahray) probably means Hail, or something... A friend xxx of\r\nours who does calligraphy made a small scroll for Peter's\r\nbirthday that says over and over\r\n\r\n Hare Om Namo Shiva...... )\r\n\r\nGuess I never x told you about being in labor....because I\r\nwas so tired, my breath control wasn't all it should have\r\nbeen, and the labor took about two hours longer than it\r\nneeded to, getting stuck in the middle with medium-heavy\r\ncontractions and not getting anywhere till I got some rest,\r\nso I xxx started falling asleep between contractions...which\r\nlessens control somewhat, but I needed to do it. We\r\nconsidered going to the hospital, as Paul (the midwife) said\r\na shot of demerol would help me rest, but I did not want to\r\nbe drugged nor have the baby drugged, nor for him to be\r\ndelivered by strangers and taken away from me immediately,\r\nand Peter would not have been able to be there, and it\r\nsounded so terrible we didn't even consider it much.....so I\r\nkept napping and contracting and soon we were over that\r\nstage, and into the final contractions. Got very near the\r\nend and the bag didn't break, so Paul sent for the local\r\nG.P. who stretched the membrane till it popped and plop!\r\nthere he was---and we cried and laughed for hours and\r\neverything was back to normal xxx except for a pool of blood\r\nand glop and a beautiful incredible perfect baby. I was up\r\nwithin four hours so Peter could change the sheets and to go\r\nto the bathroom. It's certainly fine to move around, though\r\nmy balance was unsteady from the sudden weight change, and I\r\nwas slightly torn, making sitting difficult for a few days.\r\nAll healed now. But, here is the interesting part: xxx the\r\nwhole thing of control and breathing and not having to\r\nscream from pain comes from the necessity of being in a\r\nhospital, with other mothers and other patients who could\r\nget upset. In a hospital, you just can't scream, or they\r\nclap a hand over your mouth (this really did happen to a\r\nfriend of ours--she socked the doctor in the face and he let\r\nher go and continue yelling) or, worse yet, stick a needle\r\nin your arm and you wake up afterwards....but Paul and Peter\r\nboth encouraged me to scream, so I did. It was truly\r\nbeautiful. I wasn't screaming from pain, xxxxxxxxxxx and I\r\nnever did have<\/u> to scream, could have controlled every\r\ncontraction with breathing, but just screaming as a further\r\nexpression of what was happening to my body, a total effort,\r\nusing every muscel and every cell, so how could I keep my\r\nvoice from participating too? Neighbors said it sounded\r\ngreat....\r\n\r\nToday is an exciting day to be writing--I understand the\r\nCapitol is being sacked, nearly, and hope it's\r\ntrue---there's a city that needs razing, and by black hands,\r\njust as the beginning of a little bit of evening up. Many of\r\nour friends have been warned by colored friends of theirs to\r\nstay entirely out of San Francisco this summer, as skin\r\ncolor will be noticed before long hair, and being on the\r\nright side doesn't help if your skin is too pale. Glad we\r\nwon't be there. We xxxx hear rumors of weapons and\r\nammunition piling up in the Ghettoes, ought to be a really\r\ndecisive thing happening soon--or maybe today is the\r\nbeginning of it.\r\n\r\nBeginning to get drippy again so I assume Jed will be awake\r\nsoon.......\r\n\r\nI hardly know how to thank you for the two checks---so many\r\nunexpected expenses--vaporizer, diapers, odds and ends, the\r\nglasses, ---so just know that we are deeply grateful. You\r\nsaved xx us a lot of worry and struggle. Also thanks to the\r\nSaches. Will write and thank them as I get going on birth\r\nannouncements, which ought to be tomorrow.\r\n\r\nAll is well, hope your eye is a lot better, Dad--oh, the\r\npictures were reallt fine---I'm proud of having such a\r\ndistinguished looking father, and you all look\r\ngreat.....here goes a hunger cry from the child, take care,\r\n\r\n love from Peter and\r\n [handwritten: Marcia]\r\n<\/pre>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n
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