Friday Founding – The Start of My Life

Prompt 2 of The Book of Me is “Your Birth”.

I don’t have many baby pictures of myself.  I know I’ve seen a few, but somehow they haven’t come into my possession.  The photo shown here is of my family, about 5 months after my birth.  We’re standing in front of my grandmother’s house, which was just below the house that my parents built when my sister was small.  Based on this photo, I’d say that I was a pretty typical bald little infant.

The start of my life, however, based on what I’ve been told, wasn’t boring.  First, my mother, due to a medical condition, wasn’t supposed to have any children after my brother.  Not only did she give birth to me, she lived long enough to see me graduate from college.  Next, I arrived a month earlier than expected.  My mother always told me that I didn’t want to miss 1972.  Being a month premature, I was transported from the hospital in Springfield, VT to what is now Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center where I spent my first few days in an incubator.

Everything must have turned out well.  At some point, I’m guessing before Christmas, my parents brought me home.  Since I was a near Christmas baby, they brought me home in a stocking.  I remember my mother showing me the stocking one time when I was a kid, but I’m not sure what happened to it.  The stocking, apparently, was a gift from the hospital to all of the December babies.

The best story from my birth?  I have a small flat spot on the end of my nose, roughly the size of a fingertip.  My mother used to tease me by telling me that I when I was born the doctor put his finger on my nose and said “Awww…  He’s sooo cute!” and my nose stuck that way forever.  The story may have been a fiction, but my flat-tipped nose always makes me smile and think of mom.