I visit Binghamton.MomsLikeMe.com on a frequent basis.  I really like some of the discussions there and have met several people in real life and they are wonderful people.  There was a question on Thanksgiving posted that gave me pause.  The question dealt with how many Thanksgiving dinners one was attending this holiday.  It took me back to 24 years ago and Thanksgiving 1984.

I was fresh out of college, working as a retail fabric store manager and pregnant with my first child.  The baby was due November 15 and Thanksgiving was November 22.  Here is the rub – if it was, as I didn’t see the problem at the time.  We lived an hour from both my father and my then-husband’s mother.  Since the baby was going to curtail our travelling, or so we thought, we figured we would head up there for Thanksgiving.  My OB/GYN was not too thrilled but said as long as the weather was going to be good, we could get back to Binghamton to the hospital before I gave birth if labor started up there.  We also figured we would stop in our a family gathering at the best man’s home.  So we lined up two full dinners and some snacks for Thanksgiving Day.  I was making my first turkey at home on Friday.  Three dinners and one finger food session in two days.

You would not believe how much a 41-week pregnant woman can put away!  I ate wonderful foods all day.  It was truly a miracle – and a real bonus to my long-term health – that I didn’t go into labor that day.  Heaven only knows how that would have worked as I don’t think my stomach was every empty the entire day.

Sitting at my then mother-in-law’s table, one of her daughter’s said that she was sure we should leave.  I was going to have a baby soon and probably shouldn’t be that far away.  Needless to say, I ate and drank – lots of water and tea – until I almost burst.  The next day, I made our first Thanksgiving.  Too bad I had never been in the kitchen prior to the stuffing of the turkey.  I couldn’t figure out for the life of me why the stuffing that the recipe said was enough for a much smaller bird would not fit in my turkey.  I found out later but I am sure all you seasoned (pun intended) cooks know what my problem was.  I had left the neck and giblets in.

Again, I ate my fill.  I probably ate the soon-to-be-delivered, nine pound baby’s fill also.  But no baby on the Friday after Thanksgiving.  Saturday came and went but Sunday involved waking up with a stomach ache.  I wasn’t sure at first what it was.  I had eaten so much since Thanksgiving Day that I figured I deserved a stomach ache.  I got up and rocked in my rocker – for some time – before decided it was time to head to the hospital.  I was evidently the perfect first labor.  The doctor managed to walk over to the hospital from his house during half time of a football game, broke my water and delivered 9 pound Edwin James.