WAITING FOR FRANKIE
My pregnancy was pretty uneventful until, in due time, the contractions began. Oh boy, did they begin! And they lasted 36 hours! I had no real idea of what giving birth was all about but a day and a half of hard contractions teaches you a lot in a very short time. Actually, that short time seems like forever. My baby was positioned in me in the most awkward way – not head first or even feet first, but sideways, called a transverse birth. Herman was a medical corps- man in WWII but even that didn’t prepare him for the difficult birth of his first child. The doctors’ said that they had never lost a father yet but that Herman came the closest.
Herman, Baby Frank, Leon Schluger, Dorothy, Sadie Schulger
FRANKIE ARRIVES
And then suddenly there was a bouncing baby boy with a mark from the forceps over his eye. Frank Shooster, our first son, named for his grandfather, Herman’s father. Nana
Dora couldn’t have been happier. All the love that she had for her late husband, who died far too early, was now transferred to his namesake. Frankie was a handsome, brown-eyed boy, curious about everything and very demanding of attention. I was in the hospital for ten days recovering from the ordeal of bringing him into the world but he was worth every minute of it. I remember crying to myself when they took my baby boy for his bris; they were hurting my baby. In those days the father was not allowed to hold the baby until the parents were ready to take the baby home. When the day arrived to leave the hospital Herman came into my room and we began dressing Frank. When Herman leaned over to embrace his first-born son, Frank greeted him with a stream of some- thing that was not champagne. A rude introduction to fatherhood but funny all the same. For anyone who wonders how a long marriage like Herman and mine’s can last or how two people can truly become one over the years – here is part of the answer. It is a letter Herman wrote to me at about two in the morning of my birthday in 1954.
Frank Shooster - with mark from forceps.
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