Birth: Mine

My mother hypnotized herself to give birth to me. Since she was the first woman in Delaware to do so, she was surrounded by medical students. Oh, and her physician, Dr. Conrad, was a woman.

Nearly three years before, when mom was in labor with my brother, her physician was late in arriving. The nurses who were attending my mother gave her ether. By the time mom delivered Alan, both she and her new baby were green from all the ether she’d been given. After that experience, mom vowed that if and when she had another baby, she’d never go through that again.

In January 1961, it was snowing when mom went into labor. Since their car didn’t have chains (the requisite equipment for driving in the snow at that time), my father borrowed their neighbor’s car.

My dad … *sigh.* When he was younger, dad was prone to tension headaches. As you might expect, when mom went into labor during a snowstorm, dad was being “destroyed” by yet another headache. He remembers mom castigating him about it, too, saying that “I’m in labor, about to give birth, and you have a headache!” Yeah. I’m glad I didn’t get to participate in that happy time other than just being the cause of it.

From what I gather, the birth wasn’t complicated, and I arrived, healthy and whole. Dr. Conrad wheeled the bassinet in which I lay out to the waiting room where my father sat with the other fathers. I suppose if a father-to-be had made a fuss he might have been allowed to scrub in and be in with his wife for the delivery. However, in the early ‘60s, it wasn’t the norm.

Dad says that Dr. Conrad wheeled the bassinet over to him and told him that he had a daughter. Then she whisked the blanket from my little body to give my dad a look. Every time dad has told me about that day, he’s included this bit. He guesses that the doctor wanted dad to have a good look at me so that he could see with his own eyes that I had all the requisite parts a baby girl was supposed to have.

And that’s all I know about my own birth. Heralded by snow and pain (my father’s), my mother brought me into the world by hypnotizing herself into a deeply relaxed state so that she could stay in as much control of herself as was possible for a woman in labor.