Who Said Being Born Was Fun?
For some reason or other, unusual and crazy experiences seem to travel with me throughout my life. Normality, is an existence very foreign to me and my life. Even my birth was an extraordinary event.
On November 20th, 1944 my mother went to a hospital in Watertown, South Dakota to welcome me into the world. The world was engulfed in the horrors of World War II , both in Europe, and in the pacific seas of Asia. But the war was not her main concern on that November day. Getting rid of that big lug in her lower abdomen was all that was on her mind.
Mother was 24 years old at the time, and, when she wasn’t pregnant, she weighed only 100 lbs or so, and stood slightly over 5 feet tall.
But on this particular day, a big 9 pound, 8 ounce baby boy was anxious to see the world. Labor, for my mother, was long and difficult. The main problem arose, in that my big head was larger than the entry into her birth canal.
As a last resort, in an attempt to save my mothers life, Dr. Maxwell used a very long forceps to squeeze my head hard enough so he could physically pull me into this world.
At that time, three sizes of delivery forceps were typically used by Dr's in assisting difficult deliveries. They were unimaginatively called short, medium and long delivery forceps. Other suppliers had only 2 types of forceps, which they called low and high forceps. The use of each was determined by how far the baby had gone in their journey through the birth canal.
Note: In modern times, use of high, long and medium forceps has been discontinued due to the damage they have done to mother and child.
When Mother's water broke, and the amniotic fluid drained from her birth canal, my head was immediately pushed to the dilated opening of her cervix. Her cervix had dilated to it's maximum, but no matter how hard she pushed, my head was just too large to go through.
My journey was abruptly stopped just as it was beginning.
The Trauma Begins
Dr. Maxwell was presented with a dilemma. He could wait longer, and risk losing both mother and baby; or, he could save the mother by doing whatever it took to remove the baby.
He chose the latter.
Even though c-sections were performed by some Dr's prior to the war, they were far from common and were considered a risk to the mother. So Dr. Maxwell chose a long, or upper forceps and did what he decided he had to do. He manipulated the forceps up to the dilated cervix and attempted to secure my head between the jaws of the forceps.
But that was a difficult undertaking.
There just wasn't enough room for the jaws of the forceps to expand and surround my head. Because Mother's contractions were pushing my body, and thus my head strongly against the bottom of her womb, there was just nothing available to grasp with the forceps.
Finally, with the forceps, Dr Maxwell grasped what he could of the top of my head and began the process of squeezing my head and pulling; getting another grip, then squeezing and pulling again. He continued this process until my head was far enough out that he could get a large enough grip to pull me out, and into the world.
Thus, I was officially born, at 9:12 am, Nov 20, 1944.
This delivery was extremely difficult and painful for Mother. She was relieved it was over, and did her best to rest for a bit.
Meanwhile, the delivery nurses were cleaning me up and trying to form my skull back into it's previous shape. When they had me cleaned, diapered and wrapped in a blanket, they brought me into Mother's room.
When Mother saw me, she screamed,"What have you done to my baby?!!"
My face, including both eyes, was black and blue. My forehead was caved in, as was the back of my head. There were scrapes, cuts and bruises over much of my head. Other parts of my skull were misshaped.
But, Providence prevailed. Both my mother and I, survived.
Would this inauspicious beginning of my life be an omen predicting future events?
Only you, the viewers of this and future posts, will know!