1971

As the baby developed it caused Susan’s hip to tip up on one side. It might have been a cramped back muscle pulling it up but it was very painful. The doctors didn’t know what to do for it. At seven months along, Susan started taking Lamaze lessons. She wanted to have the baby naturally because to the trauma she had experienced with the anesthesia of Brian’s birth. She continued in school and took a child development class during the summer semester. She had just taken her final exam when early the next morning she went into labor.

On July 31st we left Brian with the Vaioleti’s and drove to Kahuku Hospital which was in the middle of a sugar cane field. The doctor had to be called in the middle of the night but he lived next door and came right away. With just four hours of labor and the lessons learned in Lamaze class we had a little girl with a head of dark curls. Susan was smiling from ear to ear. As she was rolled toward the recovery room we stopped in the hallway to call her folks in Utah with our happy news. Susan thought she would die of hunger before they brought breakfast after those four hours of work.

I went home and folded a cloth diaper and pinned a sign of, “It’s a girl” and affixed it to our front door post. Later I took Brian to see his new baby sister. It was love at first sight. They always got along after that.

While we were expecting we had seen the movie, Dr. Zhivago. Susan thought if her new baby was a daughter she would name her after the dark haired girl played by Geraldine Chaplin, in the film. We gave her my mother’s name as her middle name. We put Tanya Latu Pasi on the birth certificate. When Roberta Baehr came by with a gift with “Tonya” written on the card Susan knew that’s how she wanted it. She called the hospital and got it changed on the birth certificate.

Tonya was such a good and quiet baby and a joy to our family. She had very dark round eyes and we called her our little mouse. Susan started tending Alani Jr. and Dougie Vaioleti a month later when Poppy went back to school. On the day Tonya turned one month old Margaret ‘Iloa had a baby girl, they called little Margaret. She was to be Tonya’s best friend. Tonya stayed so quietly in her crib that other than nursing she made no demands. Susan could almost forget she had her in the maelstrom created by the three little boys. The Holy Ghost actually came with a warning for Susan. She was made to know that if she didn’t pay more attention to the baby that she would not bond well. This was treated as very important information and things changed immediately.

Susan continued to have painful trouble with her back and hip. I prepared spiritually to give her a priesthood blessing. Our friend Peter Vamanrav and I gave her a blessing one day after church. She got up thinking she would stand up straight but she was disappointed that she couldn’t. Then she noticed that the pain was completely gone. She could even sleep on her stomach again. Over time her back muscle slowly relaxed and she became straight again. This was a real testimony to us.

Tonya, like Brian, was also very popular with the girls at church. They would run to the car as we drove in and compete to see who would hold her.

Grandpa and Grandma Sandberg soon made their first trip to Hawaii to see their newest granddaughter and to stay with us ten days.