It was Thanksgiving 1983. We had just purchased out first home 4 months prior. The week before I found out I was pregnant with our second child.
Ray III was 3 yrs old. Because I grew up in a Jewish household, I just loved all the Christmas holiday things. The family, the food, the gifts - meaning the shopping, the wrapping and cooking ~ alot of things people thought a chore I thought was fun. Since I was new to all this I also over indulged in shopping and planning.
A few weeks before Christmas I started spotting. I went to the doctor and he told me to stay off of my feet as much as possible.
I did, but it was the holidays and I also had a toddler at home and a husband who worked long hours. Anyone who lived nearby was busy in their own lives.
As usual we were planning to go to North Jersey for Christmas. It felt like one of those changes was going to get the best of us within the next couple of years because we were the only family members that lived down the shore at the time. We could still travel with little Ray, but we felt in the near future we would want him waking up in his own home on Christmas to share the excitement.
It was a bitter cold winter. I mean bitter. Below freezing wind factors.
Christmas Eve day I started spotting more. Then the pain started.....and continued. I couldn't/shouldn't leave my bed. I was hoping I wasn't miscarrying.
Uncle Ray stopped on the way home from work on Christmas Eve, picked up a roast and some fixings that he could put together for us for Christmas dinner at the last minute since we couldn't travel. I told him to go up north with Ray and spend the holiday there. He wouldn't go.
5:30 that morning I woke up in extreme pain and just knew from the depth of my soul I just miscarried. Here is was Christmas morning. I had to call the doctor. He said maybe not, just stay off my feet. I knew differently because the pain stopped out of the blue.
I cried for the baby I just miscarried. I cried because I pulled my husband and son away from the extended family for the day. I will never, ever forget Ray's words to me at that moment....."Abbe, you and Ray are my family. We are here together. This is how it's going to be from now on as our family grows."
That was the turning point in us running up north on Christmas. We realized that our immediate family was important and we had to alter tradition. We found our way over the years how to visit a day or two later. It's was all ok.
Later into the morning I called my friend Colleen to tell her what had just happened. She invited us to stop by later in the evening for dessert with her parents and family. It was the start of a new tradition. Now 27 yrs laters I still stop by late on Christmas night. Through that 27 yrs, she's divorced and has a new segment to her family, Uncle Ray died, her Dad died who always made the plum pudding Uncle Ray craved for every year, the kids have grown, sometimes one of our kids are there, sometimes not....however it falls, it works.
The next morning I went to the doctor and the ultrasound confirmed what I already knew.
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