Todd and I officially graduated, but neither of
us wanted to walk in BYU’s summer commencement; I’d done it before, it was not
that exciting to me. To Todd it was a
mere stepping stone; he still had four more years ahead of him. He went fishing on the Green River; I worked
the event. Our first baby was due July
24th, but I had all sorts of things planned around that time, so it
worked out better that he was just a little late and didn’t come til August 1st. That summer I’d been finishing up my program
and working full-time at the Visitors Center on campus. Todd worked at a vet clinic in town while
completing his Animal Science degree and applying to vet schools. We’d been married for two years, life was
good, but change was on the horizon. I
took the day off. The day I was to be
induced. Just for fun. The day before that was the last day I worked full-time for
pay. We were 24 that summer.
I needed to know how to change the diaper before
I left the hospital, so I summoned the nurse to teach me. I’d never changed one before. So embarrassing. Even after reading all the papers they
insisted I study and digest and checking off my work, I felt overwhelmed and
ill-prepared for life with a baby. But I
consoled myself by telling myself they send home babies all the time with 15
year-old high schoolers and they do just fine.
I could do this. But I was
nervous. I didn’t know anything. Anything.
We stopped by my work on the way home from the
hospital (I’d stayed overnight) because I wanted them to see a tiny, tiny
newborn. I remember one kind of rough guy in overalls holding him; I wanted him to. Not many get that chance. Once we got home my aunt and
uncle came by. I hate that first picture;
I look fat and ugly and so tired. That first
night we looked at each other; we were ready for bed. We had no idea what to do about the
baby. He was wide awake. So we tried to go to sleep, but he woke up
several times during the night that night.
And for the next 10 months. Todd
would set out the supplies on the kitchen table each evening as we got ready
for bed and made a make-shift changing table.
A pile of gauze, Vaseline, wipes, newborn diapers, tiny nightgowns, and
a fresh stack of undershirts. We were
exhausted first-time parents. Is this
how everyone did it?
Todd left for work every morning at 5:30. He stained cabinets half an hour away because
he needed more hours than he was getting at the vet clinic. I was
up anyway, so we watched the morning news together while he ate breakfast, and
I would nurse baby Andrew and try to put both of us back to sleep for a
bit. During these early days I tried to
rest as well as read all I could in the follow-up chapters of What to Expect, as well as all the
material that came home from the hospital.
There was so much I didn’t know. I
had no idea what “take it easy” meant.
Even with my 5th baby.
Was I supposed to lounge around all day?
I wrote thank you notes and went to a baby shower my friends at the BYU
Visitors Center had for me. I remember
vacuuming with baby Andrew lying on our couch without flinching. Went to the doctor. Made arrangements for our truck and the apartment
we’d be moving into, bought more used clothes and blankets for the baby. I packed.
We spent time with our friends.
My family came from California for the first weekend. I hated that I didn’t feel up to shopping
with them.
I felt overwhelmingly isolated those first two
weeks. The world obviously carried on as always. Someone else was doing my job at BYU. People were dating and playing outside,
enjoying their summer and their freedom.
I didn’t have the car. I stayed
in my cute little apartment until Todd would get home. I felt old and fat and sore and like such a
novice. But I delved into my role and
remember propping baby Andrew across my lap and reading aloud to him. I wanted him to hear my voice and words from the
very start. I felt that he’d like to
hear his mom talk to him.
We moved across the country two weeks after he
was born. From Utah to Illinois. Todd drove the Ryder. We drug our little Ford behind us. The only person who came to help Todd load it
was our home teacher, a fellow student.
His wife was dying with Scleroderma.
They had a little son. They were
such kind, nice people. It was the
middle of August and so hot. Our other
friends came and helped clean our blinds.
So nice of them too. It was a
tiny apartment, so it was easy.
The hard part for me the last day or so was the
decision-making. We would be spending
our last night in Utah at my aunt’s house.
Then we’d be on the road for a few days.
And after arriving in Champaign-Urbana we’d be leaving on another trip. So I had dirty laundry, clean laundry,
suitcases, and long-term boxes for the truck.
I hate things like that. It’s one
thing to move across town, you just kind of throw things together and deal with
them the next day. But we were also
young and poor and didn’t have many clothes to part with, so I kind of had to
think things through. And of course we
didn’t have a washing machine at this point, so that made things a little
tighter.
After saying our goodbyes to one of the world’s
best aunts, we tucked little Andrew in his car seat between us in the front
seat of the Ryder truck. Every gas stop was busy. I’d hurry and nurse Andrew, then run into
whatever gross bathroom we happened upon and wash out the breast pump and
bottles and fill up bottles with new water for formula in case we needed them and
changed Andrew. I was still healing
myself, so I wasn’t at my peak. It
seemed to take forever.
We traveled 12 hours each of the first two days
and got in to Limon, Colorado, late our first night. The people at the diner were impressed with
how tiny our baby was. We felt so
fragile and young, but it was fun to stay at the Best Western and to be on our
own. We made it to his grandma’s house
in St. Louis by the second night. I knew
it was stressful for Todd to be in charge of his young family in a huge moving
truck in a strange city with all sorts of on and off-ramps and lights and distractions,
but I was so proud of him, in awe of all he was doing for us. It was late again, so hot and muggy and so
loud with the cicadas. I’d never heard
anything like it. Finally, someone
familiar though. That part felt good.
We made it to our student housing complex the
next afternoon around 2, a short four hour drive from his grandma’s house. Todd left me in the truck in the parking lot to
assess the situation and came back forlorn.
He felt so bad. But I knew we
would make the best of it and I told him I'd make it look like us, I'd make it cute. It was
Illinois, mid-August, mid-day, 87% humidity.
It was sweltering. So hot. Our apartment was on the second floor where
you enter a main building then go up to your individual apartment. This was so strange to me, coming from
Southern California. Everywhere I’d been—from
all my schools I’d ever attended to the malls and my own apartment building I’d
grown up in—you enter your door directly from the outside, no inner
hallways. Just different. Stuffy.
The whole thing smelled like stale Asian cooking. The floor was like old-fashioned linoleum
from an elementary school throughout the whole apartment. No shower curtain. Cockroaches.
No air conditioning. But another
young couple saw us and helped Todd unload.
I sat on our loveseat and fed Andrew as other young couples started
showing up and helping Todd unload. I
tried to figure out who everyone was and who belonged with who. I was completely out of my comfort zone and
overwhelmed from having given birth, saying goodbye to my family, and leaving
the place I’d lived for the past six years.
One couple brought us a fan, another brought a
carpet remnant, and another invited us to have dinner with them and their young
family. It was 8 by the time we sat
down to eat. I still remember the
dinner. Little hamburger patties, macaroni and cheese, and tomatoes. Wasn’t that so sweet of them to make their
meal stretch? It was one of the most
generous offers I’d ever had. Todd also
went to the K-mart that night to buy us a shower curtain. K-Mart was far to one side of town and our
new friends’ townhouse was across several fields in the other direction. I recorded, “If it weren’t for them [the
families who met us and helped us that first afternoon], I think I would’ve
burst into tears. Actually, I think we’ll
be ok.”
We left the next morning for Minnesota so we
could visit Todd’s parents. What we’d
decided that first night in our new apartment was we would sleep as long as we
needed. We would evaluate how we felt the
next morning and decide if we were up for the trip. We felt like we should go, so we left around
9 our first morning in Illinois and made the 11 hour drive to northern
Minnesota. At least we were in the car
instead of the truck. Todd’s parents had
just taken over running a resort from the 1930s with lake-front cabins, and so
it was the perfect little vacation for us to spend some time with them. They even provided us our own little cabin
and stocked the fridge with yummy food and treats. They were so thoughtful as we stayed with them
for a week even as they were in the height of their tourist season and so busy
with all their other guests. I think
they were happy to see their first grandbaby.
Although sad to say goodbye, after that week it was time for us to
tackle our apartment, cockroaches, and our new life.
Immediately after we returned from Minnesota he
began his vet school orientation, and I essentially began my new phase of life
as a full-time mom, wife of a young vet student, and setting up camp in a new
part of the country, surrounded by people from Egypt, Nigeria, India, China,
and Taiwan. Of all this, I wrote “There
are millions of cockroaches (even though they spray and we use Combat). I really want to meet them [our neighbors,
not the cockroaches] so I can get to know them.
I kind of like having lots of people around. They generally seem very nice. We met a couple of families in the ward who
live here also, so we feel very lucky and blessed.” And so that’s how those years in Illinois
started out. We continued to be blessed
and to feel overcome with love for the beauties of the Mid-West and the people
we came to know. I don’t know that we
were any different from any other young family moving from BYU to its graduate
program in a new part of the country. It
just always surprises me that it was almost 18 years ago because right next to
the memory of shopping with my 13 year-old daughter just the other day lives
these memories of yesteryear. I'm amazed at easily I can
conjure up my first impressions of our new apartment, remember how lonely I
felt as a new mom home all day, how we slowly acclimated to our new life, and
how sad we were to be leaving four years later.
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