Monday, November 10, 2008

It’s A Miracle

In honor of the birth of my sister's first baby, I present the miraculous story of my birth, and my early infancy....


The day before I was born, my mom woke up with labor pains. She began timing them. When the pains came closer together, she decided it was time to get my dad involved.

"Paul, wake up. The baby's coming."

"Are you sure," he asked. "Can't it wait until the morning?"

After convincing him that it could not, in fact, wait, they loaded her overnight bag into the car and headed to the hospital.

After a thorough examination, the doctors advised my mom that what she was experiencing was false labor.

"Go home and rest," they told her, "come back when your water breaks."

On the way out of the hospital, dad refused to carry mom's overnight bag.

"You do it," he hissed. "You've completely embarrassed me Alene. I cannot believe you pulled this shit."

That night, mom awoke with a fierce pain and the realization that the bed beneath her was soaked.

"Did you piss the fucking bed," dad asked.

"No Paul, my water broke. The baby is coming. We need to go back to the hospital."

"Well, you need to call your momma, because it's the middle of the night, and you're not going to embarrass me again."

With that, he rolled over and went back to sleep.

I was born on April 11th, 1977 to a fifteen year old hillbilly girl and a nineteen year old middle class boy. My mother was kicked out of school in the 8th grade, due to her scandalous pregnant condition. My dad's IQ tested in the genius range, but he was more interested in being the white world's answer to Jimi Hendrix.

I was unwilling to leave the womb of my own violition, so the doctor used forceps to pull me out. He stuck them in my left eye, blacking it and damaging my vision.

I was injured in the very first second of my independent life. I think this was the world's way of warning me about what was in store.

My mom loved to tell me the story of my birth after she had been drinking (which I have already established, was always). She always ended the story with, "you were the ugliest baby I've ever seen. But I still loved you." Photographic evidence does back up this ugliest baby claim.

When asked about my infancy, she would say, "You had colic, and all you did was scream. You never wanted to lay down. I would spend hours rocking you to sleep, and as soon as I laid you down, you would wake up and scream some more. I had to hold you constantly. That's why your head is nice and round. I used to stand on the balcony and think about throwing you off, just to get you to shut up."

When I was 5 months old, I was put on a pallet in the floor and left unsupervised while mom cooked dinner. She came in to check on me and found my face covered with blood and my mouth crammed full of Christmas tree needles. She panicked, removed the bloody needles from my mouth, and rushed downstairs to get help from a neighbor. The neighbor advised her to "cool out and drink this beer". Mom says I coughed blood for a day and a half, but received no permanent injury.

When I was nine months old, I was placed in a walker while mom made dinner. She left me alone in the living room for "one minute". When she returned, she found a lethargic baby and her newly opened Budweiser tall boy, completely drained.

It is a complete wonder to me that I survived my infancy at all.

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