Life was good again. Joe had taken a job as head basketball coach at Lincoln Park High School. George moved in with Uncle George. My beloved brother, his wife and two kids lived just five minutes away. Uncle Calvin and his wife, Jan, lived nearby.
Buddy joined a little league football team coached by Joe's friend. Getting him to join took a little urging. Buddy was a home boy...not really into sports. But the promise of a new bicycle at the end of the season worked! Buddy was small for his age and took a lot of hits on the football field, had a lot of bruises and threatened to quit after every practice and game. But he hung in there...and got the promised bike. He was so proud of that bike, washing and shining it every day.
Then...Tammy rode it three blocks to an ice cream parlor on Hamilton. While she was in the store, somebody stole the bike. She came out just in time to see it being rode away and gave chase, but couldn't catch it. She came stomping into the house, madder than a red hen...but nothing compared to Buddy when she told us what happened. My timid little boy came flying off the couch and tackled Tammy, both of them tumbling to the floor while he pounded on her screaming....you lost my bike....you lost my bike. I managed to get them separated. Buddy's tears broke my heart. And Tammy's too. I had promised to get a bike...now she told Buddy he could have her bike instead.
The kids were changing and I didn't like it. Where they had always been inseparable now Tammy, especially, was pulling away, making new friends and not including Buddy. Suddenly, they could not get along and I didn't know what to do. I talked to Buddy about it and said they were just growing up. It was natural for them to branch out and get new friends. I told him girls especially needed girlfriends and at their age, they thought boys, even brothers, were nuisances. I was hurting right along with Buddy. Tammy and I had always been very close and could talk about anything. She stopped confiding in me and spent a lot of time alone in her bedroom when she wasn't with her friends or on the phone with them. I realized, just as I explained to Buddy, that she was growing up. But I still didn't like it.
Joe and I eagerly awaited the birth of our baby. We discussed names endlessly, finally deciding on Joseph Franklin...after both our fathers...if the baby was a boy. If it was a girl, she would be named Polly Jo...after my granny and Joe.
The doctor was concerned about me having time to get to the hospital when I went into labor. Both Tammy and Buddy's births had been fairly fast. I was in labor with Tammy only four hours and two hours with Buddy. The hospital I would go to was on the east side of downtown. Joe and Jimmy practiced making that run several times...at different times of the day.
My pains started early on Sunday morning. I was at the hospital shortly after 8 a.m. and Joey was into hurry to be born. He didn't arrive until the next day at five p.m. after a harrowing and painful 36 hours. During that time my labor was erratic. Pains would be very hard and intense when I was up walking. Then stop completely when I lay down. They kept me walking most of the day and night. Then about one in the morning, I began bleeding. After that I had to stay in bed, even though the pains stopped. A nun stayed with me the entire night and all the next day. She said that the doctor ordered I not be left alone.
On Monday my doctor examined me and said I was dilating satisfactorily but the baby had not moved into position. He broke my water, hoping that would hurry things alone. But, no...nothing happened. Then after noon he began an IV to hasten things. All that did was keep me in constant pain. During that time Mom came to see me. She had taken a bus up to stay with Joe and the kids while I was in the hospital. Everything was a big haze to me and I barely remember her being there.
Thankfully, after three hours of torture, the doctor stopped the IV. And all my pains stopped.
I knew something was seriously wrong, but was too tired to care. Then I overheard my doctor talking to another doctor. He said I couldn't take anymore and was in serious danger even though the baby still seemed strong...but that could change any minute. He asked where my husband was and the nurse said they had called the school and left a message for him to come to the hospital as soon as possible. Sometime later, I don't know how long, I again overheard the doctor saying to someone that he needed an operating room immediately for an emergency caesarian.
Suddenly my room was a hive of activity with several nurses, including my precious nun, doing whatever they did. Then a gurney was brought in. I was too weak to scoot from the bed to the gurney, so nurses got at my feet and my head...saying they would help if I could just scoot my bottom. Well.............In the middle....stuck in the space between the bed and gurney...I was hit with a massive bearing down pain! My doctor was in the room also. When I started grunting and told him about the pain...he screamed Halleleujah! The nurses and my num grinned and clapped. Next thing I knew they were running with me to the delivery room while yelling at me not to push....breathe...breathe...don't push!
Everything went fast after that. In the delivery room I got a shot in the spine...spinal block. But it didn't work. I ended up having a natural birth. And I bet, when the baby came out...the scream that released him was heard all over the hospital! Then came the sewing up....with no anesthetic...enough said! Fifteen minutes after the initial bearing down pain in my room, I had a beautiful, seven pound eleven ounce boy! Joey was born nearly on the dot of five p.m.
Joe finally showed up at 7:30....after basketball practice. He was thrilled, to say the least, to have a fine, beautiful, healthy baby boy. When I asked him why he had not come that afternoon when the hospital called, he said the message he got was that "everything's going good...come to the hospital when you can." so he didn't realize there had been a medical emergency.
Then Joe told me his cousin's husband...with whom we were very friendly...had died of a heart attact that afternoon. He was on his way to the bank from the bar he owned, pulled off to the side of the expressway and died. Subsequently, Joey and I had a lot of visitors the next three days as relative's on Joe's side of the family came for the funeral from all over the country...and came to the hospital to see his baby...and, in most cases, meet his wife.
Joey and I stayed in the hospital all week. I was on complete bed rest because of the effects from the anesthetic that hadn't worked. Every time I raised my head off the pillow I got a blinding headache! To this day I'm convinced that's why I have so much pain in my back.
Finally...on Saturday Joe picked us up and took us home. To a full house. Besides Mom and the kids, the welcoming party included Jim, Loretta and their two kids, Uncle Calvin and Jan, Uncle George and Georgie. Joey was sufficiently oohed and ahhed over...Uncle Calvin remarked he had the big Shepherd feet...Uncle George said he had the Wussles good looks.
Before going to the hospital I had fixed up a pretty bassinet to use downstairs...but, this had been broken while I was in the hospital...with Tammy and Buddy each blaming the other. Also, Mom said my washing machine had stopped working.
After everybody had gone home, Mom stayed with the kids while Joe and I went to Sears where we bought a portable crib and ordered a new washing machine to be delivered on Monday.
When we got back to the house, Dad was there. Mary Sue and Leo had driven him up to get mom...who was planning to stay another week until I was able to drive her home. But Dad said one week without her...actually just five days...was enough!
As it was, I had plenty of help from Tammy and Buddy when they weren't in school. Tammy more so than Buddy. Immediately, Tammy fell in love with her little brother and claimed he was her baby. Within a couple of days she was as efficient as I was changing diapers, feeding and burping. She would have slept with him had I let her! Buddy equally loved him and would hold him and even give him a bottle...but, like Joe, would have no part of changing a diaper!
Joey was not an easy baby. He cried...and cried...and cried...everytime he was laid down. He cried even when I walked the floor with him at night. The only sleep I got for six months, was with him laying on my chest...then never more than a couple hours at a time. It was one happy day when I realized he had not had a colic attack in over twelve hours! I never could get that baby to sleep in his own bed, though. He would only sleep when he was in bed with me...and later on, with Tammy.
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