Birth Of Jennifer
From James Donahue’s Journal
We were still living on Fulton Street when Doris began having symptoms that something was wrong. She went to see Dr. Groat, who was so concerned that he sent her to a specialist in the Detroit area. After an examination this doctor said she may be showing the early stages of an autoimmune deficiency which was possibly Lupus. Doris was sent to University of Michigan Hospital in Ann Arbor for extensive testing.
I took time off from work and drove Doris to Ann Arbor and got her checked into the hospital. She had to stay overnight because the tests were scheduled to begin early the next morning. I spent the night in a nearby motel. The next morning when I showed up in Doris’s hospital room, she was laughing. She showed me a card the nurses had just handed to her. It read: “Congratulations, the rabbit died.”
That was the way they ran pregnancy tests in the old days. They injected the test into live rabbits and if the animal died, it indicated a positive pregnancy test. That test was among the first conducted by the hospital before they subjected Doris to any further testing. That stopped any further testing. She was sent home immediately.
We have laughed ever since about all the trouble we went through to find out we were expecting a fourth child. For some reason it never occurred to us, to Dr. Groat or that specialist in Detroit that Doris might be pregnant.
By the time Jennifer arrived we had sold our house in Sandusky and bought a larger country house on Hale Road, about five miles south of town.
Actually, Doris developed some serious medical problems while carrying Jennifer and we were not sure for a while if she or the baby would survive. Doris began having irregular heartbeats and she was so short of breath the doctor admitted her to Sandusky Hospital for a while. She was there the night I was called to cover a major story of the release of a Vietnam prisoner of war and his arrival at a U.S. Air Force Base in Ohio. It was a major story and I really wanted to take the assignment. Doris assured me she was going to be all right, and that I should make the trip. She was right. She later was released from the hospital and was home when she went into labor.
It was a tense time of waiting for both of us. I was deeply involved in the church then, and I remember one night praying for Doris as I was driving home. I turned everything over to God and asked that His will be done. I began crying and had to stop the car along the road before I got home. I gave myself time to settle down so nobody would know.
The night Jennifer arrived both Dr. Groat and I were attending a Mental Health Board meeting. He was a member of the board and I was there to report it. We were both called out of the meeting because Doris was in labor. I drove home in a snow storm to get her. She was anxious to get to the hospital because she thought the baby was going to come quickly.
We arrived on time but there was no sign of Dr. Groat. The nurses delivered Jennifer. She came so quickly that I was still in the room, which was a first experience for me. Dr. Groat got there later to check on Doris and the baby and sign the birth certificate. The nurses said he was drunk. That may have been why the birth certificate states Jennifer was born on one date and her actual birth was a day earlier. We have celebrated two birthdays all of her life.
From James Donahue’s Journal
We were still living on Fulton Street when Doris began having symptoms that something was wrong. She went to see Dr. Groat, who was so concerned that he sent her to a specialist in the Detroit area. After an examination this doctor said she may be showing the early stages of an autoimmune deficiency which was possibly Lupus. Doris was sent to University of Michigan Hospital in Ann Arbor for extensive testing.
I took time off from work and drove Doris to Ann Arbor and got her checked into the hospital. She had to stay overnight because the tests were scheduled to begin early the next morning. I spent the night in a nearby motel. The next morning when I showed up in Doris’s hospital room, she was laughing. She showed me a card the nurses had just handed to her. It read: “Congratulations, the rabbit died.”
That was the way they ran pregnancy tests in the old days. They injected the test into live rabbits and if the animal died, it indicated a positive pregnancy test. That test was among the first conducted by the hospital before they subjected Doris to any further testing. That stopped any further testing. She was sent home immediately.
We have laughed ever since about all the trouble we went through to find out we were expecting a fourth child. For some reason it never occurred to us, to Dr. Groat or that specialist in Detroit that Doris might be pregnant.
By the time Jennifer arrived we had sold our house in Sandusky and bought a larger country house on Hale Road, about five miles south of town.
Actually, Doris developed some serious medical problems while carrying Jennifer and we were not sure for a while if she or the baby would survive. Doris began having irregular heartbeats and she was so short of breath the doctor admitted her to Sandusky Hospital for a while. She was there the night I was called to cover a major story of the release of a Vietnam prisoner of war and his arrival at a U.S. Air Force Base in Ohio. It was a major story and I really wanted to take the assignment. Doris assured me she was going to be all right, and that I should make the trip. She was right. She later was released from the hospital and was home when she went into labor.
It was a tense time of waiting for both of us. I was deeply involved in the church then, and I remember one night praying for Doris as I was driving home. I turned everything over to God and asked that His will be done. I began crying and had to stop the car along the road before I got home. I gave myself time to settle down so nobody would know.
The night Jennifer arrived both Dr. Groat and I were attending a Mental Health Board meeting. He was a member of the board and I was there to report it. We were both called out of the meeting because Doris was in labor. I drove home in a snow storm to get her. She was anxious to get to the hospital because she thought the baby was going to come quickly.
We arrived on time but there was no sign of Dr. Groat. The nurses delivered Jennifer. She came so quickly that I was still in the room, which was a first experience for me. Dr. Groat got there later to check on Doris and the baby and sign the birth certificate. The nurses said he was drunk. That may have been why the birth certificate states Jennifer was born on one date and her actual birth was a day earlier. We have celebrated two birthdays all of her life.