BORN: November 14, 1959 - Wednesday - 1:27 p.m.
Leominster Hospital
Leominster, Massachusetts USA
7 lbs. 2 oz. (?) - 19 1/2 inches long
Induced labor - born head first.
Labor started immediately upon inducement
he was born in about 1 hour.
Because of such a quick birth, few contractions; he had a 13 minute asphyxiation period
(didn't take a breath for 13 minutes).
I always watched to see if his brain was damaged
because of that - but, he is just fine - PTL!

Had morning sickness for six weeks, starting about the sixth week of pregnancy. Wasn't anemic. Normal pregnancy. Induced labor and normal delivery. He was named Michael after St. Michael the Arch-Angel in the Bible; and David after King David in the Bible.

At birth, Mike had a touch of red in his hair; lots of hair at birth. I had read something about newborns having a lot of hair, if the Mom's drank a lot of milk after the 5th month of pregnancy. I wanted to see if the article was correct, so I drank a lot of milk and it seemed to work.

His hips were checked by bone specialist (Dr. Felix Heimberg). He wanted to adopt Mike; he thought we had enough children. He was Jewish and liked Mike's red hair (they still look for a Messiah to be born, with red hair, like King David). I was honored, but in no way would I even consider giving up this "beautiful" child for adoption.

The specialist assured me that Mike would have the best of everything, the best education, etc. If he had said anymore, I'm sure I would have hopped out of bed and thrown him out of the room.

Mike's left foot turned slightly in and I was told to exercise it 4-5 times a day...which I did every time I changed his diapers. I had to put my right thumb up against his left big toe and in a semi-circle motion, push it around towards the right (the outside, for him). In a short amount of time it was alright.

He was always healthy. Mike had a few, heavy nose bleeds. One time he had a slight concussion when one of his friends dropped him on his head, when he was about 7 years old. He had to stay in bed and I couldn't let him fall to sleep (in case he lost consciousness, and I didn't know it).

Mike was always very considerate, always co-operative. I don't think there was a time we had to punish him.

He used to like to go fishing - whether he did any fishing or not, I'm not sure. It was said that he didn't like to put the hook into a worm. He did go fishing (deep sea) with our next door neighbor, Mr. George Emmerling. And, they brought home a good amount of fish; I think there were about a dozen fish - I cleaned them in the driveway and cleaned them with our garden hose. Of course, "Thee Fisherman", Joey, was along.

Mike and Joey went to a fishing derby; they didn't catch anything all day long. It was time for us to go home, when Mike began to reel in his fishing line. He hooked into a very large trout, by his tail, and landed him. Mike won an aluminum boat - I think it sat 5 people. We never did use it, as we had no way to get it to a lake. Soon after we were making plans to move to Canada, so Mike sold his boat.

He had all childhood diseases or the shot to protect - mumps shot, also.