Happy Birthday Maffy …

Here you are at age one … July 18, 1960

I will never forget the day that you were born. Dad and I were living in New York City and it was a terribly hot month. We, and your brother Mark (born July 3, 1959), were spending as much time as we could at the movies. We were trying to stay cool and it was about the only place in Manhattan that had air conditioning … or at least in a place that we could afford !

I knew that the OB doc was on vacation but I wasn’t worried because you weren’t due to be born until August. However, I was awakened with a bad tummy ache and when I described it to his nurse she gave me the phone number where I could reach him. He asked me a few pertinent questions and then advised us to get to the hospital ASAP.

I was totally unprepared but we grabbed Mark and headed to the streets to hail a cab. The taxi driver was not happy to be driving a lady who was gasping for breath and yelling “you’d better hurry if you don’t want to deliver a baby in your cab”, because by this time I was really in labor. We were headed to Lennox Hill Hospital and it was across town from where we lived but we did make it in time …BARELY !

The cabdriver honked his horn and jumped out of the cab at the Emergency entrance looking for a nurse. One came running out with a wheelchair but after a very quick assessment she yelled “forget the chair. We need a stretcher stat…this babe is about to be born!” …and she was right. No time to get prepped at all. They rolled me direct to the OB birthing room and out you came. I was still on the stretcher and everyone was laughing and you were screaming your little head off.

It was an auspicious start and you haven’t slowed down since then. Even the smile is the same …HAPPY BIRTHDAY MATT