I was shaken after my mother’s bout with mental illness. I hoped that we would all return to a kind of normalcy and we actually did for a time. I was still taking college courses and Mike was attempting to earn an advanced degree. My brother, Michael, entered his senior at Jesse Jones High School where he was proving his mettle in mathematics and science. Pat had entered high school as well. Meanwhile Mama was working as a substitute teacher while searching for a full time job. Each of us kept moving forward even as we had been quite affected by the events surrounding Mama’s bout with mental illness. Somehow our lives would never again be quite the same.

In November, shortly before I celebrated my twenty first birthday I learned that I was pregnant. The news brought great joy to all of us and gave us something wonderful to think about. In particular Mama seemed to be more elated than she had been for many months. Her uptick in mood eventually gave her the confidence to embark on a new job at the University of Texas Health Science Center where she would work on a long term blood pressure research project. She had begun to question her stamina for teaching and so it was good to see her moving in a new direction. Little did any of us know how important her new job would ultimately become for her mental health. 

Nineteen seventy would prove to be a good year for all of us even though the Vietnam War was not going well and protests broke out on college campuses all over the country. Because I was carrying a child I became less and less involved with the politics of college. Instead I hunkered down to become more and more serious about the direction I wanted my life to take. I was in a nesting mood, planning for the arrival of my first born child. 

In that year there were no ultrasounds being used to determine whether a woman was carrying a boy or a girl baby. The reveal would not take place until the day of birth, so most items purchased ahead of time were generic in nature, suitable for either boys or girls. Since we were in the dark, we also had to choose two potential names for the child which took some imagination and compromise before we finally decided how our little one would be addressed. If it was a girl we would name her Maryellen after our two mothers, Mary and Ellen. If it was a boy he would be known as Thomas. 

That spring Michael graduated from high school as the Valedictorian and announced that he had been accepted to Rice University on a full scholarship. He would study Electrical Engineering. We were so excited for him and intensely proud that he had done so well. He and Pat worked that summer at a roadside produce stand on Mykawa Road, carefully saving their money for the fund that they had been creating years before. Their plan was to pool their resources to purchase a used car that they might share. It was difficult to believe that they had grown up so much because I still thought of them as the two baby boys who came to live with us so long before. 

As my summer time due date approached I became enormous in size. Friends let me borrow maternity clothes which back then tended to be unfitted loose dresses that easily allowed room for my expanding girth. Generally one size fit all. By the end of June I was overdue and feeling miserable with feet so swollen that I was barely able to stuff my sausage like feet into a pair of shoes. I was also having difficulty walking due to a pain in my left hip that made each step send a stabbing shock up and down my leg. It was a very hot time to boot. Nonetheless I waited patiently for the baby to grace us with an entrance into the world.

The generosity of family and friends had filled our one bedroom apartment with diapers, clothing, blankets, a high chair, a stroller, a baby bed, a playpen, children’s books, and all sorts of toys and accoutrements associated with the care and feeding of a tiny person. I was anxious to welcome my little one into our world, but it would not be until mid July that my contractions would begin. Unfortunately my doctor was out of town vacationing so I would end up spending my hours in labor with a doctor that I had never before met. I was left mostly to myself in a darkened room wondering if the staff had forgotten me.

I spent the next eighteen hours having regular contractions that seemed to be going nowhere. I was literally beginning to wonder if I would ultimately be sent back home like the woman who had been moaning incessantly in the room next door. I was shocked when one of my nurses explained that the lady’s contractions had stopped and so she was no longer there. I worried that all of the pain I was feeling would end of being be for naught. I wished that the staff would at least let Mike come to visit with me, but their policy was to keep untrained folks at bay.

My entire family had gathered in a waiting room where they discussed the future of the child who was about to enter their lives. Pat proclaimed that if it was a boy he would take the youngster fishing. If it was a girl he would escort her to her first dance. Everyone was overjoyed and full of anticipation. I was becoming more and more certain that the baby was somehow stuck inside. I actually began to drift off and on into sleep. 

Finally in the early morning hours of July 18, 1970, the doctor and nurses wheeled me to the delivery room where a beautiful nine pound two and a half ounce little girl made her grand entrance into our world. She was beautifully perfect and so large and well formed that everyone agreed that she was long overdo. I was ecstatic but exhausted so the doctor gave me something to sleep and after briefly sharing my joy with Mike I fell into a deep slumber that was only interrupted at feeding time. Maryellen Burnett would change us all for the better from those first moments of her life. It was a beautiful new beginning.