It all started in a small town named Delta,
Colorado.
My mother, Terry, living in an even smaller town nearby went to the bathroom in peace
for the last time. As she sat down on the john, third baby roasting (not very contentedly) in
her biological oven, she felt a small pain in her belly. Thinking it was the fried food she
had eaten earlier that evening, she dismissed the pain, assuming she was paying the price now
for having eaten the forbidden greasy morsels.
And then she felt it again, the same pain, only slightly stronger...and it seemed to come from
her womb.
Like any good mother, seasoned in childbirth, she of course panicked, thinking
"This might be it...I might be in labor. Oh great."
She immediately got up (and I assume, put her clothes on, although I do not know this for a
fact) and notified the proper authorities, grabbed her bag she had so carefully packed so many
months ago, when she was sure the baby was going to come early.
Off she went to the hospital, still not sure she was in labor, but taking the necessary
precautions.
Arriving at the hospital, crawling up the steps, struggling to get onto the gurney to take her
into the delivery room, nurse shoving her hand into a rubber glove, reaching down to check
how far my mother was dialated, catching my head as I came flying out...
Almost exactly fifteen minutes after my mother felt that first twinge, I was born.
Into the world I flew, screaming and hollering, enraged and obliged to share it with everyone.
That was the last my mother ever knew of peace.