Twenty eight years ago I had the best Mother’s Day in the whole world. I gave birth to an eight pound, six-ounce baby girl after 32 hours of labor.
The hospital nurses that came on the next shift didn’t believe she was mine because of that black hair!
Off flight status voluntarily at five months, I was working “panel support” four months later as flight engineer in the Minneapolis 727 simulator when my contractions started.
I was two weeks overdue and I felt as big as a house.
Flying in the simulator, doing approaches into Chicago O’Hare, the guys asked me if I was ever going to have that baby?!
I told them, “Yes. Probably today. I’ve been having contractions all morning.”
Panicked, they wanted me to leave immediately. I told them we weren’t really in Chicago – just a simulator, fifteen minutes from my hospital.
This is not me in the 727 simulator! This is me in the Dreamliner, 787!!
Unconvinced, they landed the simulator and sent me to the hospital. Sure enough, the doctor checked me out and sent me for a long walk. I wasn’t ready.
OW. It took forever to have her, but 28 years ago, Mother’s Day fell on the 13th of May and I had my present!
Darcie Erin West
What a sweetie.
Darcie going to the dawgs.
Darcie almost grownup in Hawaii.
I still remember that idyllic morning in Minnesota…a little country hospital with horses grazing in the field outside my window. The hospital food was delicious, and I checked the box for extra chocolate chip cookies. Munching away, nursing my brand new baby daughter…I knew nothing could never top my Mother’s Day present.
Yea!! Happy Birthday Darcie!
SAME STORY…A LITTLE MORE DETAIL…
My uniform was too tight. There were no maternity pants or shirts. Northwest had never dealt with a pregnant pilot before. It was unheard of. The captains and copilots were trying to carry my bags for me and offering to do my preflight. It was embarrassing. “I’m not sick. I’m just pregnant. I’m probably healthier than you are. I can carry my bags – I lift weights and do aerobics every day. I’m fine.”
And I was. I would wake up early in my motel room and eat just enough to throw up. That was usually all the morning sickness I had. Once, and only once during my preflight, I raced up the aft air stairs of the 727 and threw up in the back lavatory. Other than that, I had no trouble doing my job.
Still, at five and a half months I decided to look into other alternatives. I knew pilots on medical leave were allowed to “panel watch” in the simulators. In other words, they filled an empty seat as flight engineer and participated in training exercises and check rides. I talked to Charlie Lindberg in administration about my dilemma. He called the training department. They could only use me as a “panel watcher” three or four days a month. That wasn’t enough for a full schedule. I opted to keep flying.
“But you can’t. You don’t have a maternity uniform.” Charlie said.
I wasn’t backing down. “They didn’t have a female pilot’s uniform when I started either, and you had me buy navy pants at JC Penney’s. I’ll buy a pair of navy maternity pants and sew my epaulets on a white maternity top. It will look fine.”
Charlie almost had a heart attack right then and there. A maternity uniform for a pilot? He said he would make a few more calls and sort things out. At home the next morning the phone rang. Charlie said, “We can fill you up in training.”
Jubilation. Now I could feel like a professional again and do my job. I loved panel watching. Every instructor had different ideas, and I learned something new all the time. I got better and better at my job and handling “emergencies.” But nothing is ever as easy as it seems. One of the instructors overheard me talking about seatbelts in cars during pregnancy doing more harm than good. That you were almost better off not to wear one, because all the blood flow to the uterus meant that you could easily bleed to death before help arrived.
This instructor didn’t want me in training to begin with and had been impossible to work with. He not only thought women were an annoyance, we just shouldn’t be there. He couldn’t comprehend that a woman could perform a job as important as this. I was kicked out of the simulator. He went to the head of training and told him I wouldn’t wear my seatbelt and that it was an FAA rule, even in the simulator. I was called in, and explained that wasn’t what had happened; we were just talking. He laughed, told to wear my seatbelt, and that was the end of it. The best part was that I didn’t have to fly with that instructor ever again.
Most of the time it was fun in training. I was good at the panel and knew my job. Once one of the guys landed so hard that we bounced seven times down the runway. My baby woke up and starting kicking me. That got a laugh out of everyone.
At nine and a half months one of the instructors asked, “When are you going to have that baby?” We were “circling” near Chicago, in a phantom holding pattern.
“Soon.” I answered. “I think I’ve had labor pains all morning.” The guys panicked. They wanted to land. I reminded them we weren’t really in the air or in Chicago. Besides, our training facility is only a few miles from my hospital. They relaxed. A little. They still took the simulator off motion and made me leave for the hospital.
There really wasn’t any hurry. I was still in labor thirty hours later.
Road closed due to four more broken poles. So much for Wasco Electric and Sherman County maintenance...where does all that wind tower money go?
