Stories from an Unconventional Childhood, Week One

Over at Mommy's Piggy Tales there's a cool project going on about family history. There is a challenge to blog for 15 weeks about our growing up years, with a different time period covered each week. Spitfire talked me into joining in because she's hoping for some wild stories from my childhood. So here goes.

I was born in the mid-sixties in a predominately German community in central Texas. My mom and dad were living in a small frame house close to the hospital and the eldest of her two younger brothers was staying with them for the summer.

Mom was getting close to time and anxious to have me. It was late July and the heat and humidity were really getting to her. She decided that something needed to be done, so she and her brother went for a walk in the evening two days before I was born and walked for hours.

Early the next morning my mom's water broke. My dad went and woke up mom's teenage brother. He said, "Her what did what?" He told him he would explain later because they needed to leave for the hospital. They didn't have a car, so they called a friend, who drove them there. My dad and uncle waited for hours while the labor progressed. Things were going pretty well, then the doctor intervened.

Her doctor decided that she had been in labor for too long and was tired so he gave her something to help her rest, which also slowed down her labor. The doctor told my dad is would be a while, so he sent my uncle back to the house. He eventually joined him so they could fix some food. He checked in periodically, but nothing seemed to be happening. In fact, the labor had been slowed down so much that my mom slept through the night, labored slowly the next morning and I wasn't born until the middle of the next afternoon.

After a couple of days in the hospital, we went home. Family from both sides began arriving from all over the state to see me. My dad, overwhelmed by being a new father combined  with the crush of relatives, decided that it was the perfect time to take my uncle fishing.