When the Krafts got pregnant with Calvin they were living in Wisconsin. They lived in the middle of the state with Roger commuting to Madison and Christine commuting to Milwaukee each day for work. When she got pregnant, they decided to have the baby in Milwaukee, about an hour away from their home. It made things a bit difficult to have everything so far away. When the due date came closer, Christine got a job in Madison and so they moved there. The only problem was that Christine wanted to stay with her obgyn in Milwaukee. The doctor was one of the top ones in the state and they had been through the whole pregnancy with this doctor so it was hard to think of switching so late in the process. It meant driving an hour and a half for Christine’s appointments, which were weekly in the last month. Christine was planning to switch to a local obgyn, but she delivered a week early and never had the chance until 6 weeks later.
The birth itself was not a big deal. They had to drive to Milwaukee at 4 in the morning through highway construction – in the rain. Christine backs up and reminds him of what happened just before all that. She was still working in Milwaukee. Roger was watching baseball because he wanted to see something about Cal Ripken. Roger explains that Cal Ripken used to play for the Baltimore Orioles a while ago. Christine says it was a long while ago, now. On that particular day, Cal was expected to break Lou Gehrig’s record for consecutive games. Roger grew up in Maryland and was a big Cal Ripken fan so he was really looking forward to the game. Ripken did break the record, although Roger can’t remember the exact number of games like he used to..it was something around 2,000.
The game wasn’t broadcast on local TV, so Christine met him (like a good wife) at an Applebee’s restuarant to watch the game on their TV. She went back and forth to the bathroom and paced around during the game. Roger did take time out to talk to her, with an eye on the game at all times, of course. Christine was doing her best to leave him to enjoy his game. When they got home, she told him she thought her contractions were starting. Because it was her first pregnancy, she wasn’t really sure, plus she still had a week to go. Later that night they called the doctor who told them to come on in because they were so far away. Roger didn’t want to start the drive until she had some pretty hard contractions. He didn’t want to go all that way for false labor.
When they got to the hospital, the interpreter was there and they went into the delivery room. Christine was fully dilated and ready to go. The doctor offered to break her water to speed up the process and Christine said she’d have to talk to Roger about it first, which makes her laugh now to even think that she somehow needed to discuss this when everything was going along. Her parents got to the hospital around 10 a.m. and the baby was born at 2.
Christine remembers that when she left the hospital with the baby, she experienced some kind of “baby blues” or something. She felt like she had no idea how to be a mother. She’d see kids playing outside and just cry, wishing her baby was that old already. Now their son is 7 and in school, and Christine still gets sentimental about him.
