Melanie Papadopolous Is ‘First Baby’

Some time in July, Alexandra and Jordan Papadopolous discovered a paper stork hanging above the sink in the kitchen with a sign attached: ‘Guess what?’ Neither of them, who are 18 and 17 years old respectively, got it. Their parents Terri Rock, 46, and Harry Papadopolous, 47, were going to have a baby. ‘What are you thinking?’ Alexandra recalls asking her parents, who were, needless to say, just as surprised. Baby Melanie Verree Papadoupolous was born at 12:09 a.m. on January 8 and is winner of the Palisadian-Post’s First Baby of the Year contest in 2005. Her arrival will be celebrated by local merchants with gift certificates, baby gear and pampering for her parents. The fact that Melanie was not planned fits right into the Rock/Papadopolous philosophy. ‘I don’t plan things; it’s too scary if you do,’ says Terri, pointing to the couple’s elopement and joyful surprise of their first two children, who now attend Palisades High. Terri and Harry met in Nicaragua in 1981 as volunteer healthcare workers with the Christian Medical Society, who had been invited by the new Sandinista government. Harry went on to work as a Canadian Peace Corps volunteer, teaching science in a small village in Nigeria, while Terri completed medical school. They eloped to Palm Springs in 1985. While surprised at first and certainly out of practice as parents of a newborn, Terri and Harry have the benefit of experience with babies, both professionally and personally. Terri, ‘Dr. Rock’ to many Palisades families, has operated her solo family medicine practice in Santa Monica since 1990, the same year (Continued on Page 5) she and her husband moved to the Palisades. While she spends her days responding to the needs of various families, from kids to seniors’her oldest patient is 104’Harry manages the office, and for many years took care of the kids and the house. ‘One of the benefits of my practice and my patients is that they seem very accepting of the fact that Melanie is going to be in the office,’ says Terri, recalling that her older kids went on hospital rounds with her and visited patients in nursing homes. ‘In fact, when we went to St. John’s to deliver the new baby, some of the nurses remembered Alexandra and Jordan.’ For all her knowledge and experience with babies, Terri was in total denial about the baby from beginning to end, and elected to forego the natural childbirth route. As it turned out, Melanie proved to be a tough delivery and put her mama through a two-day labor. ‘After 39 weeks, we decided that it was time and induced her. She was moving a little less, and her heart rate was going down with each contraction,’ says Terri, who was well aware of the risks with an ‘old’ placenta. When the doctor decided to deliver the baby by Caesarean, the whole family was present to observe the birth. Melanie joins the Rock/Papadopolous clan as the youngest of the 26 cousins (Alexandra is the oldest). Terri, raised in Texas in a doctor’s family, is the oldest child of five girls. Harry, whose given name is Aristides, but changed it to Harry after his godfather in hopes that he would be able to assimilate more easily in his Greek family’s adopted country, Canada, is one of seven children. So the parents know about family and like it. ‘Apart from being tired, we now know how to do this,’ Terri says. ‘It’s fun, I do enjoy seeing them grow and develop and I love going to the kids’ activities. And, there’s no doubt about it, it will keep me young.’ Harry has been an active parent volunteer at the local schools, the YMCA and the Recreation Center. Although Terri admits that she was a bad patient, having persuaded the obstetrician to let her out of St. John’s a couple of days early, she appreciates the advances in technology that have made childbirth safer and more hospitable. The entire family responds in chorus about the new obstetrics wing at St. John’s, where every labor and delivery room is private and equipped with a comfortable bed for the father, a labor and delivery bed, prep area and best of all, according to Alexandra, a plasma TV, thanks to Governor Schwarzenegger. Apparently, the governor paid for the TVs, along with donating the new neonatal wing at the hospital in honor of his wife, Maria. While it looks as if Alexandra might trade her babysitting job with the next-door-neighbors for her own little sister, Jordan is still wondering how something so cute and little could have such a loud cry.