MY FOUR CHILDREN

I was married three months befor my nineteenth birthday. Yes it was too young.! My husband was seven years older and was a workaholic. He spent most of his time running a garage and repairing machinery etc. We had one son naturally when I was twenty. And dearly wanted to have more children, but it was not meant to be. No IVF in those days, though I underwent various treatments trying to find out why. To no avail, so we adopted a baby boy who was only 15 days old at the time. His birth mother could have changed her mind for the next 30 days, but fortunatly she did not. So we added Geoff to the family, three and a half years younger than John. Next we adopted Julie who was 5 weeks old, as the changing the mind bit was altered which was a good thing. She is the daughter who recently underwent a serious operation, but she came through it beautifully, thank goodness. When she and her husband had been married 6 months, he was baling hay in big rolls and saw some twine where it should not have been. The result was he lost his right arm from the elbow but he has an artificial arm with a claw. He works hard driving a truck he owns, carting gravel, sand or water. At present he is doing a lot of the housework and washing, as Julie is not allowed to do much at all. She lost 12 kilos weight in 2 weeks. Last, but not least came Kathryn, 20 months after Julie. She was 6 weeks old as she had been premature. She gave us an awful scare when she was about 20 months old. She got a viral pneumonia and had a raging temperature of 108-5. So she was confirmed at the hospital by a priest. Doctor did not give us much hope, but his partner doctor had been out with his girl later his wife. Saw our car at hospital at 2am, so came to help. He said “Why isn’t she in the humicrib?” first doctor pointed out that she would not fit, but he turned it on & said “I’ll fit her in it” Then measured Kathy and turned the humicrib off. Then come back with a cardboard box (a beer carton) with a hole he had cut to fit over her neck and put oxygen into the box and thus saved her life. I heard nurses talking, saying if she lives she will not be “normal”.. The temperature finally came down, with a fan on her in middle of winter. The second doctor slept in the room she was in, after sending us home. Now she has 5 children from age 7 to 18. Beautiful cook and makes clothes & also patchwork quilts. She and her husband have a dairy farm and milk about 200 cows. Another time I will talk about my grandchildren and two little great grandchildren. So that is my family. I have asked the last three if they wanted to try to contact their birth mothers. Geoff said “No” as he considered we were his real parents. Julie said that she had enough mothers & mother-in- law and was not interested. Kathy on the other hand would have liked to meet her and put her name down on a list they have, but the mother did not want to meet her. She does not know what she is missing. I said to Kathy recently to consider trying again, as it is nearly 20 years and maybe her situation has changed. Maybe she will find time to try again. She does not have a lot of spare time. She has taught all the kids to cook, sew and even the boys tried knitting. They all have horses and go to Pony Club etc. Kathy drives a large truck that carries aaaaabout 6 horses, and she takes the kids camping and fishing etc.