The “Sylvia Plath Calendar” - 62 years ago today:Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes’ daug

The “Sylvia Plath Calendar” - 62 years ago today:

Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes’ daughter, Frieda Rebecca Hughes was born on 1 April 1960 at 5:45 a.m. at 3 Chalcot Square, near Primrose Hill, North London, UK

…

“Finally, on the night of March 31 [1960], after she and Ted had taken a walk along Primrose Hill and Regent’s Park that had tired her enough so she fell asleep immediately, Sylvia awoke to labor pains. Then everything happened quickly. By two o’clock when Ted called the midwife, Sylvia’s contractions were violent. By five, she was fully dilated. By five-thirty, when the nurse called the doctor, Sylvia believed the baby would come any minute. And it did—at five-forty-five. A girl, she weighed seven pounds and four ounces and measured twenty-one inches in length. Sylvia called her Frieda Rebecca, and the source of the name was clear. It was Otto’s [Sylvia’s father] sister Frieda, Sylvia’s aunt whom she had described as “resembl[ing] daddy—the same … blue eyes and shape of face.”

During labor and the actual birth, Ted remained at Sylvia’s side; he often held her hand and rubbed her back. As he had hypnotized her over the past few weeks, Ted had offered a posthypnotic suggestion that she have a quick and painless delivery. Though by no means painless, it was—at four and a half hours—relative quick.”

In a letter, Plath stated that “[t]he whole experience of birth and baby seem[s] much deeper, much closer to the bone, than love and marriage.”

–Excerpt from Rough Magic: A Biography of Sylvia Plath by Paul Alexander, 1991

Picture: Sylvia Plath with Ted Hughes and their daughter Frieda at Knole, UK in May 1960