Delivering David

Written by Bernice Meyer Saltzman
May 4, 1954. 6 p.m.
Backus Memorial Hospital, Norwich Conn.

Twenty-four hours ago I was preparing dinner for Sey and me – warmed over lamb roast, fried noodles, toss salad. We had grapefruit that wasn’t very juicy and some pears. We ate, I washed dishes and then we worked on a Sunday New York Times crossword puzzle. Later in the evening we spoke to my mother and dad on the phone and also to Ma and Pa Saltzman, and watched a play on TV about Cardinal Mindzenty. At 11 p.m. we piled and listed the laundry and set it outside for the morning pickup. Then we went to bed. During the day, which had been alternately teeming and misty with spring rain, I had read a mystery, ironed some laundry and written Mothers Day cards. All the time I had felt no different than I had the previous two weeks – just cumbersome with a low back ache.

Sometime around 1:45 a.m. I woke up, as had been usual, and prepared to settle into another position, but I was soon aware of an uncomfortable pressure low in my pelvis which grew more intense. At 2 a.m. I woke up Sey and for about 15 minutes we tried to time what we thought were labor pains. But there was no timing anything because the pressure was constant. I conjured up my lessons on natural childbirth and tried to relax by breathing abdominally, but found it impossible. Sey and I kept agreeing that I couldn’t be in labor because there was no regularity to the pains and the membranes hadn’t ruptured. But Sey got his stethoscope and listened for the baby’s heartbeat. Then he decided he had better examine me. When he immediately felt the baby, he quickly dressed and tried to get me up and dressed – said we had to get going to Hartford.

But at just at that moment I didn’t want to get up or dressed. I wanted to push and push I did, involuntarily, pulling on Sey’s arm and then on the bed post. I had several of these “bearing down” contractions and then, somehow, between one of them, I grabbed on my bathrobe, overcoat and loafers, snatched up a pillow and two towels and waddled outside to the car. I laid out on the back seat on my side clutching the pillow and steeling myself for the hour’s ride to Hartford.

Sey came just behind me, told me to keep my legs together and got into the front seat. The car didn’t start. “The spark plugs are wet from the rain,” I said. “It’ll start,” he said, “and try not to push.” The car started. “Hold on, sweetheart, we’re going to Hartford!” I was praying. Speeding along I was unable to keep from pushing and when Sey said to let him know how often the pains were coming, I said, “Don’t go to Hartford, go to the hospital in Norwich (which we had to pass on the way), I think I feel the head!”

When I said this Sey turned into the driveway of the Backus Hospital which we had just come to and drove up to the ambulance entrance. He opened the door of the car to get me out but I said I couldn’t move. He disappeared then and the next minute I felt as though I was stretching beyond what was possible. Then suddenly there was a gush, a swish of warm liquid, and tremendous relief. “Sey!” I called. He was right there. I said, picking up my leg, “Take a look.” He did and then went to work. Next I was aware of an orderly and heard Sey say, “I’m a doctor. Get me a clamp set, some blankets.” In another minute there were several nurses in and around the car. A nurse got into the front seat holding up a sheet ready to receive the baby and Sey said, “I’m Dr. Saltzman and this is my wife.” I said “How do you do?” to her.

I couldn’t see what Sey was doing but in a few more seconds the baby started to cry. Sey said, “You’ve got a baby.” I said, “Cry, please keep crying, cry your head off for me.” I heard Sey say “Come on, little baby, cry, little baby.” Another few seconds and I said, “Sey, what is it?” “It’s a boy,” he said.”

Soon after, I was lifted out of the car and taken up to a delivery room. In fifteen minutes a doctor named Higgins came in, scrubbed up and examined me. He delivered the afterbirth, said I was fine and took two stitches in the mucous membrane. How many you got at home, Mrs. Saltzman?” he asked. “He’s the first.” I said. “No!” he exploded. Then the baby was brought in for me to see. His face was red and his hands and feet were blue, but he wasn’t wrinkled, his head was a nice round shape. I was told he weighed seven pounds, seven ounces and was born at 3 a.m. as near as anybody could tell.

Along about 3:45 a.m. I was put into a comfortable bed. Sey was sitting beside me, both of us with tears in our eyes, giggling with happiness, gratitude, and disbelief.

This is the way our son was born. I suppose many babies are born in the front or back seat of a car, but somehow we feel a bit unique in that our first born arrived just an hour after the first signs of labor and was delivered by his father. We had had a joke for many months about driving to Hartford in the middle of the night, getting stopped for speeding and telling the policeman we were on the way to the hospital and then getting a police escort with bells, sirens and whistles. A joke is outdone, but a dream comes true!

The way it was for Sey: He got scared only when he tried to get me up and dressed and I said I didn’t want to go anywhere. He feared I might hemorrhage. It had been impossible to believe the baby might be born so soon. At the entrance to the hospital he had rung the night bell and noted a sign which said “Ring bell. Attendant will come as soon as possible.” It had seemed an eternity until someone answered. Then he heard me call him from the car when I felt the head born. He began to pray then. He felt to see if the cord had got twisted around the neck. It hadn’t. Then he rotated the shoulders, told me to push a little and delivered his son. He held the baby upside down and rubbed his back until the baby began to cry and tapped his feet to keep him stimulated. When he was satisfied the baby was breathing, he gave him to a nurse and then clamped and cut the umbilical cord. He had looked to determine the sex of the baby almost immediately.

The baby got into the hospital before his mother did. As I was being wheeled in I saw Sey holding out his hands that were bloodstained and I heard him ask where he could go to wash up.

The Saltzman Family, Thanksgiving 1959
David (age 5-1/2), Lisa (4), Robert (almost 2)

Postscript: Decades later, Seymour unceremoniously handed David a set of keys and said without fanfare, “These are the keys to the car that you were born in.”