Remembering the birth of my daughter Julia

The Birth of Our Daughter Julia

Julia Rose Sanders Coughlin was my firstborn--at Central Baptist Hospital, Lexington, Kentucky, October 9th, 1982.

There was plenty of drama involved with the birth, as there is with every birth. We lived in Berea, Kentucky, about 40 miles from the hospital. I had just started teaching for the college. The night before our baby was born, Linda started experiencing pains in her thighs. They weren’t too bad, as far as I could tell. What I thought was suspicious was the regularity of these pains--every 12 minutes or so. Around 9 or 10 pm I urged Linda to call her Mom in Cincinnati. Her Mom told her to call Dr. James O’Neill, Linda’s ob-gyn doctor in Lexington. Dr. O’Neill asked Linda to time these thigh pains and if they occurred every certain number of minutes, to come to the hospital.

I think it was around midnight that we left for the hospital. Every 8-10 minutes Linda seemed to get these upper-leg pains. I remember that she had a strong contraction as we were driving over the Clay’s Ferry Bridge, a high bridge on I-75 between Berea and Lexington. I concentrated on the driving and let Linda handle the contraction. In my mind that was the safest thing I could do.

After about an hour we got to the hospital and Linda was admitted. That process is a bit of a blur, but what’s not a blur is where they put her. Linda was in a hospital bed in the hallway of the obstetrics ward (we attributed the birth boom to October’s full moon). Right near her was a woman who had been given pitocin to stimulate labor. That woman was screaming bloody murder. That could not have put Linda at ease!

After a while Dr. O’Neill appeared at the hospital and examined Linda. I remember especially how any kind of modesty or privacy was out the window as Dr. O’Neill and others examined Linda to find out how far the labor was moving along.

Dr. O’Neill seemed pretty satisfied with everything. Linda told him she didn’t want any anesthetic and he seemed OK with that. I remember that he seemed very relaxed, while I was like a cat on a hot tin roof. As Linda lay in the bed, Dr. O’Neill and I chatted about skiing, of all things. I think the chatting put me at ease.

In my mind the labor progressed pretty quickly and successfully. Then something strange happened.

Dr. O’Neill decided to break the waters (there’s probably a medical term for that). When the fluid came out, everyone seemed to gasp. Meconium. Then the fun and games were over and everyone got very serious. They wheeled Linda into what seemed to me to be an operating room (the original plan was to have the baby in the regular room).

The labor proceeded pretty quickly, Linda still doing well without anesthetic. And then, as we were getting close to the baby being born, Linda told me, “Tell the doctor that I want some anesthetic now.” So I found Dr. O’Neill and told him. He just laughed and laughed. “It’s way too late for that!” he said. And a short time later, the baby was born. I stood by Linda’s head during the birth. She did very well (and I did well--I’ve heard some new dads don’t). The baby seemed OK, though I can’t remember her crying. After the baby was born, I think Dr. O’Neill stitched Linda up a bit. The baby quickly was moved out because of the fear of aspiration of meconium.

Linda felt pretty good but we were both somewhat concerned about the baby with the danger of meconium aspiration and resulting pneumonia.

When Julia was brought back to us, we saw a dark-complected baby (like my Dad and my Grandma Cora Coughlin), with very dark-brown eyes. Her eyes seemed very intense and they looked like they were focusing on us. We decided to name her Julia Rose. “Julia” was my Mom’s sister’s name. And “Rose” was Linda’s paternal grandmother’s name--she had died shortly before the baby was born.

An odd side note: when the pediatrician who assisted at the birth, Dr. Mack, saw me he asked, “Does the baby have any Mediterranean blood?” What an astonishing question! Did he think Julia had African-American or Southern Italian blood? Was he questioning my paternity? We still get a laugh from that question of 36 years ago.

Linda did not like being in the hospital, got no sleep her first night there. She asked to go home as early as possible. But there seemed to be a hitch--Julia’s bilirubin count was too high. Luckily Julia was OK by the next day and we took her back home to Berea. A new life had begun for us. And although we thought we were well-prepared, it turned out we weren’t . . . .

Happy Birthday O Carolan!

Carolan giving Linda a birthday present. Brian Homan on left (July 6, 2013).

Our wonderful daughter Carolan Ruth turned 28 yesterday. That hardly seems possible because Linda and I hold the memories of her birth and her childhood so fresh in our hearts.

The story of her birth seems almost mythological in our family (I am admittedly one of the chief mythologizers). It was July 14th and we were ready for this baby to be born. I love names and had been thinking about all sorts of possibilities. If the baby were to be a boy, I thought about "Giovanni Francesco," which was the name of St. Francis of Assisi, my favorite saint. The English version of that would be "John Francis," the name of my Grampa FitzPatrick, who died when I was one year old in 1949. I didn't think we would have another girl, but if we did I thought about the name "Carmen." To me it was a great name for a dark-featured beauty (our first child, Julia, had dark complexion, dark brown hair, and brown eyes--"Black Irish," we figured). Also, this baby was due around the feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, July 16th. "Carmen" was close to "Carmel." Also in mind was an Irish singer I had heard on television years before, Carmel Quinn. I always liked her name. So this baby might get the moniker "Carmen."

When Linda started into labor on July 14th, we headed to Central Baptist Hospital in Lexington, Kentucky, some 45 miles from our home in Berea, KY. To our astonishment (after our first child we felt like old pros!), the labor didn't progress and the doctors sent us home. This was a little discouraging. The next evening, the labor began again and this time we were pretty sure so we packed up and headed to Central Baptist again. We arrived there around midnight. Linda was in serious labor quickly. Somewhere around 4 in the morning, the doctors spotted meconium and they went into what seemed to us a panic. Their seriousness--the sudden change from relaxed joking and talk to serious work--scared us. They wheeled Linda in her hospital birthing room bed directly into what seemed to be an operating room. Then things happened fast! And a little baby girl was born around 4:30 in the morning on July 16th, the Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. But as we looked at this new baby, we knew right away this was no "Carmen." This kid had pale skin and red hair (that stuck straight up!). You couldn't find a kid who looked less like her older sister. We would have to rethink this baby's name.

The next day someone congratulated us on the birth of "Carmen." I had to tell her that this new person's name was not going to be Carmen. Her name would be "Carolan Ruth Sanders Coughlin." "Ruth" was her maternal grandmother's name. "Sanders" was her mother's surname. And "Carolan" was the name of the great Irish harp player and composer who lived from 1670 to 1738. O'Carolan was a blind harper and composer of some of the greatest, most timeless tunes ever created (my favorite being "Sí Bheag, Sí Mhór").

Very shortly after Carolan was born, she was put into Linda's arms. Linda, who had no medicine, no anesthetic for the birth, was wide awake and full of energy. Linda wanted to call her family and friends and tell of the wonderful news. I had to tell her that no one else in the world was awake yet and that we'd have to wait a couple hours before spreading the word.#


Carolan is a happy kid, very bright, a hell of a lot of fun. She shares her joy with everyone, family and friends alike. She reminds me of Kenny Przybylski in that regard. We thank the Lord for Carolan!

Happy Birthday, Em-Babes!

On July 28th we'll celebrate the 20th birthday of our baby girl, Emily Anne. I'm thinking Em is one of the prettiest Coughlin girls in the history of Coughlin's. Luckily, she looks a lot like her Mom. The baby pictures of Em and of her Mom are uncanny in their similarity.

Em was born in Lexington, Kentucky--Central Baptist Hospital--just like her two sisters. By our third birth, you'd think that everything would be routine and totally relaxed. but that's not the way it was. Because when Em's head was birthed, her umbilical cord was wrapped twice around her neck, and her face was a very pale white. I thought she was dead--my heart was broken. But skilled doctors, the obstetrician and a pediatrician, cool as could be, grabbed that cord with some sort of gigantic tweezers (don't know the technical name of this instrument), and looped it twice over the baby's head--and voila, there she was, alive and breathing. Linda and I were overjoyed and thanked God that our baby was all right.

This baby was in for an adventure because when she was about 3 weeks old, we packed up all our household goods and moved about 400 miles north to Euclid, Ohio--where I grew up, about one mile from my Mom and Dad's house. We moved to Forestview Avenue near Lloyd Road, a house we rented from a shirttail cousin, Trish Dougherty Kennedy. An odd thing is that this house was on my paper-route back around 1961 to 1964. Em and her sisters would make this house our home for about 4 months--right around Christmas we moved less than a half mile away to 27391 Beech Drive, a home that we purchased. So in the first 4 months of Emily's life she had 3 addresses!

Em is definitely a Chardon girl now, but she is also a Salzburger Fraulein; she's been living in Salzburg, Austria for the past 3 weeks and attending classes where only German is spoken! Em is a great student and a great kid--a lover of country music, her Irish and German heritage, her family and friends. We all wish you a wonderful Happy Birthday! Froehlicher Geburtstag, Em!

[Photos shows Emily at Mentor Lagoons and at Lake Chautauqua, New York.]

Happy Birthday Carolan!

Photo shows Carolan (right) and her friend Gretchen Wolfe at the Augustiner Brau Bier Garten in Salzburg, Austria: "Prosit! Slainte!"

Today is my daughter Carolan Ruth Sanders Coughlin's 23rd birthday. Sometime around 4 in the morning on July 16, 1985, in Central Baptist Hospital in Lexington, Kentucky, Carolan was born into this world--a great day for Carolan and her family, and a great day for the world.

I vividly remember driving the 45 miles from Berea, Kentucky, to Central Baptist Hospital that summer night, north on I-75, over the long and high interstate bridge over the Kentucky River, and into the Bluegrass region of Fayette County. I was focused on driving carefully and getting to the hospital safely; Linda was focused on the contractions and on her Lamaze-type breathing.

It took us just under an hour to get to the hospital; I was worried that our second child would be born on I-75, maybe at the rest stop between Berea and Lexington. if that had happened, her name would have been "Rest-Stop I-75 Sanders Coughlin." But we made it to the hospital.

Once there, they put Linda into a birthing room, where we expected the baby to be born. By the way, we had no inkling if this would be a baby girl or boy, or if it would look like Julia, with her dark brown eyes, dark hair, and olive-colored skin. We had been playing with names, both boys names and girls names. For boys' names I was partial to "John Francis," or in Italian, "Giovanni Francesco," the name of St. Francis of Assisi and of my grandfather, John Francis Fitzpatrick. For girls, I was thinking about "Carmel" or "Carmen." July 16th was the feast of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, and I remembered a beautiful Irish singer named Carmel Quinn who used to appear on the Mike Douglas TV show. Linda had her own list of names, and I doubted "Carmel" was on it--"Carmen" maybe, especially if this new baby had the dark eyes, hair, and skin that Julia was born with.

The labor moved along very quickly, but a glitch developed right near the end when, as with Julia, the nurses or doctor detected meconium--a sign that the baby might be in some trouble. That ended the birthing-room plans as hospital personnel immediately wheeled Linda on her bed into an operating room. Their urgency worried us--would we lose this baby?

Linda had not had any anaesthetic at all, and as transition labor proceeded, she went through it without any problem (none that I could see--but then again, I had the easy part at this birth). I stood at Linda's head as our new baby was born, her "labor coach," whose main task (and accomplishment) was not fainting! And then voila! There she was, a beautiful baby girl--who didn't look anything like we expected! She had fair skin and eyes, and flaming red hair! This didn't look like any Carmen, and certainly not any Giovanni Francesco!

Very soon after the birth, we were back in a room at the hospital, Linda holding on to her new baby, and me at their side. Linda was as happy as a human being could be--she was happy, energetic, and bursting with the desire to share our wonderful news with the world. She wanted to immediately call her Mom and Dad, her brothers, her sister, her friend Jan Shepherd. And I said to her, "Sweetie, nobody else in the world is awake! Let's wait a couple hours to call people!" So we waited a while to share our good news with the world.

Linda went home from the hospital the very next day, and I remember getting a phone call from a friend congratulating me on the birth of baby "Carmen." I guess I must have shared my name ideas with some people--and they hadn't heard that plans had changed! We ended up naming this new baby "Carolan Ruth." "Carolan" was in honor of the great Irish harpist and composer Turlough O'Carolan, who lived circa 1700, and whose music is still played and enjoyed today. Her middle name honored her grandmother, Ruth Sanders. And there she was, "Carolan Ruth Sanders Coughlin," our second child (and we thought we would never be blessed with any children! and three years later, another miracle, our third: Emily Anne Sanders Coughlin).

How did this baby turn out? There is a German word for the likes of her: einmalig, "one of a kind." Carolan is a happy kid, a very fun person, very bright, compassionate, loving, a great friend, and very fun. Did I mention she's a lot of fun? Carolan is a great gift from God.

May the Lord bless Carolan and keep her, let God's grace shine upon her! Keep her Lord like the apple of your eye, shelter her under the shadow of your wings!