Yeah. All your cousins and aunts and uncles say, oh, when are you gonna
have a baby? When are you gonna have a baby? And I was 18, 18. Mhm. And I
was married five years before we had any Children. And that was in 47. It
seems like I, I'll swear I carried my son 10 months cause I kept going
back to the doctor and saying, why, why? Well, that uh October Day, we
walked, everybody walked, nobody had a car, you know, and uh I was
downtown to the doctor and he told me to go buy it a two ounce bottle of
castor oil and gobble it down and it worked, work to induced labor. I
didn't have any problems with my son. But two years later, my daughter, I
had more problems with her. And my, my daughter was born in July so it was
hot. And I do remember many days putting a tub of water on the floor and
putting your feet in the water because of the fact that you swell, your
feet swelled. So. Mhm. And those days nobody had air conditioning in your
houses, you know. So you try to get cool by putting your feet in the, in
the tub. It seemed like my belly didn't go back, you know, it was drooping
over and so forth and my back was killing me. And I have some Polish aunts
and they gave me this corset.
It was, yeah, big, you know about this big strings, like the, like you see
in the movies, you know, string, you pull the strings and, and you tighten
the belt and so forth and it was a to wear this corset during pregnancy.
And if, if it, if you got too much here, you know, you could loosen it
there and just by adjusting the strings or the straps. But it was a
blessing because it kills your back. And especially if you are, are weak
in your back anyways, you know, and, and your muscles are weak from
childbirth.
My uh husband got a call from uh Oklahoma that his father had just passed
away and didn't wanna go because I was late already for delivery. But I
said no, go because of the fact that you will see your child. We, we
didn't know if it was boy or girl. Nobody knew nothing about that but you
won't see your father again. So he went there and sure enough that night,
my mother came, I had known I didn't realize it at the time until later I
told my mother, I said something wrong with my corset. The child had
dropped and it was loose where, wherever it was, I don't know, it was
loose and I said, tighten these straps up, you know. And then I realized,
oh, it's because of the droppage of the child. But we were maybe 15 miles
or something like that to the hospital. And of course, uh, the labor was
not so pleasant, you know. But, um, it just seemed like a long ways. Mhm.
This town only had one hospital and I don't remember going in or anything.
But I do know that it's, uh, maybe four or five stories and that you were
put in with other women, not, not by yourself and laying in bed and the
nurses come in and of course they'd shave you first check your vitals. But
remember being in the bed and hurting like heck, they knock us out, you
know, those days they knock you out. That's how they did it. It's, uh, I
mean, so that's all blank. And I, and you really didn't come out of it
until you were in the, your own bed at the hospital. And, uh, the baby was
somewhere else. You didn't see the baby right away. You know, I don't know
how long it was but in the movies they put it on your chest right away,
you know. No, none of that. So, my, my husband was an only child and
definitely did not want to raise an only child. So, we were very fortunate
that. We got the second one but, uh, I could never get pregnant after that.