A Story On a Bottle

Recently I found an old pill bottle in my dresser drawer with a small, broken, red and blue bead necklace inside. On the outside was a story.

Payless Drug Store

Methergine

12/18/78

Dr Patchin

Payless at Mall 205 is now a Home Depot. I had no idea what Methergine was. The doctor’s name was only vaguely familiar – possibly a partner of my OB/GYN, Dr Harsany…. Yes, Peterson, Patchin and Harsany. I had no doubt about the date.

I looked up Methergine:

Ergonovine and methylergonovine belong to the group of medicines known as ergot alkaloids. These medicines are usually given to stop excessive bleeding that sometimes occurs after a baby is delivered. They work by causing the muscle of the uterus to contract.

That I do remember.

Andrea was born December 4, 1978, with lots of strawberry blond hair and, using my motherly methods, I could tell she had blue eyes. Bob’s mom had come to watch the kids while I was in the hospital for five days and Bob was at work. She left, I think, the day after I came home from my third of four, once-every-two-and-a-half-to-three-years, C-Section. December 18th was the day before Aaron’s birthday. It had been painful - almost impossible - to walk much for quite a while before the delivery and we still were not ready for Christmas. By then it was only seven days away. We went shopping.

After supper, we took our 5 ½-year-old Alyssa, our almost 3-year-old Aaron and our two-week-old Andrea with us. In the 20/20 vision of hindsight, this was not the best thing for me to do two weeks after my latest bikini-cut. The surgery was healing just fine. However, all of the walking disturbed my insides. On my way home I began to have excessive postpartum bleeding – so much so that we ended up in the Emergency Room back in the brand new Portland Adventist Hospital. They told me to go home, take the pills and rest.

The next day was Tuesday, December 19, 1978 – Aaron’s third birthday. I definitely remember this day. I remember that I explained to a disappointed Aaron that I was not able to make his birthday cake but we would go to Safeway and buy one – and he could pick it out. I’m not sure how I got to the store, but since Bob was working nights, he probably drove, with our two littlest ones strapped to the back seat of our blue VW Dasher. I’m sure Alyssa was at school in her kindergarten class.

This was a major change for me. Other than my wedding cake, I never had used a ready-made, store-bought, frosted and decorated birthday cake before. Most of all I remember Aaron’s choice. Of all the cakes they had, the particular one he wanted had huge, red, artificial poinsettia ‘flowers’ decorating it. I think I was successful in keeping him from getting a clue that this big-for-our-little-family, ¼-sheet, white frosting covered chocolate cake with large red poinsettias was a bit unusual for a three-year-old’s Birthday Cake. I still smile about it today. We then had “Aaron” added in red along with the “Happy Birthday”.

After we got home and had everything unpacked, I was in Andrea’s bedroom changing her diaper. My little Aaron was so excited about his cake. He wanted to look at it. He kept asking over and over if he could see his cake.

Whatever rationale I used, being tired from the previous evening, being postpartum, taking care of a new babe, with whatever assumed reasoning I had left, I decided he could. I didn’t ask myself why he thought he needed permission to look at something sitting on the counter. I told him, yes, Aaron, you can go to the kitchen and look at your cake all by yourself.

I will never know, one way or the other, but I don’t think it would have made any difference if I did or did not spell out exactly how he should do it. This was one strong little boy – both in will and body – and he was a thinker. It hadn’t occurred to me that it was in a box and he couldn’t just go in and look at it. I thought that at the most he might get a near-by kitchen chair so he could climb up and get a good look.

The next thing I knew I heard something come crashing down from the direction of the kitchen. Aaron started crying. When I got to my little kitchen, there was the cake – on the floor, beyond pretty.

His idea of ‘looking’ was to reach up from where he was standing in front of the cupboard it sat upon, grab the box from the counter and lower it to his newly-three-year-old level. He later told me couldn’t see it because of the box so he wanted to hold it. It was mostly still in the box but crumpled chocolate cake and bright white frosting decorated the floor. We salvaged enough for candles. After all, when you turn three, you need a cake for your birthday.

I kept the poinsettias. Not too long ago I found just the flowers from some artificial poinsettias and wondered why in the world I kept them... now I think I know.