…my mom was in the biggest struggle she had encountered in her 20 year old life. She’d rodeoed, water skied, ate a million donuts. But on this day 42 years ago she was on the final leg of a 39 hour bought of labor. Prior to that pregnancy, she weighed a whopping 90 pounds. At full term she weighed 125 pounds. Inside of her was a 10 pound monster with no desire to come out. Why the doctor didn’t do a c-section is beyond me, but there she was struggling in vain to get me out of there. Every time they dosed her up with some medication, I’d relax too. We just all relaxed together. My grandmother’s (we called her Ma) legs were the size of tree stumps. She never left mom’s side. She was a tiny woman too and normally had the smallest ankles you’d ever seen, but not on this day. I think they finally squeezed me out of there by wrapping a sheet around her and doing the pushing for her.

I’m sure every October 14 is a nightmare memory for my mother. I arrived right on time by doctor’s orders at around 1:00 a.m. October 15. The only thing the doctor told her at the time was….I told you she’d be here on the 15th.

This is mom’s favorite part of the story….I was so fat that normal new born dresses wouldn’t fit. I had no neck. Ma had gone out to buy me one of those super fancy expensive dresses at Nieman’s. They tried putting it on me and couldn’t button the top two buttons. She always liked reminding me that I was a porker and ruined her figure.

Amazingly, after all that…she had more children. Induced of course.

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