Writing the other day about birthing babies made me recall some of the memorable deliveries in which I was a participant, back when I was a medical student – 20 years ago. 

Mother #1 wanted her birth delayed so the kid would pop out on a certain date, based on its potential horoscope (I don’t recall if the kid cooperated with this). 

Mother #2’s first words to her delivered baby were “Shut that brat up”. 

Mother #3 demanded everybody leave the room right after the delivery so she and her spouse could have 15 minutes alone for crucial bonding with no one else present (sort of like the hatched ducklings). 

Mother #4 continually threw up her pasta dinner she was fed ‘for the ordeal’I was told the Italians in the area commonly did this and nearly all the women vomited it up.  No one on staff ate Italian as a consequence. 

Several mothers thought their daughters’ name was “Female” (rhymes with tamale) – as this was on the birth certificate.  

Mother #5 wanted only Jewish staff to touch her/her baby.  Kosher kids. 

Mother #6 had all sorts of knick-knacks around her; I think they were charms and things passed down from generation to generation to be present at the births. I remember one was to scare away evil spirits. They certainly gave me the willies.  

 Mother #7 was vexed her delivery was upsetting some sort of social appointment she was now going to miss. 

Mother #8’s spouse was clearly not interested in the “team approach” fathers were expected to do these days. During her delivery he got ill and excused himself. She was livid. She shouted at his absent self all through the birth. Meanwhile we had to get someone to attend him; between the vomiting and the ordeal he had fainted in the waiting room. 

The most memorable delivery was Mother # 9 –She and her family came in all in a crisis; she was visiting from Texas and was going into premature labor 2 weeks early. What was causing such as panic was all their family had been born in Texas for many generations and – horror! – the child would be born in Michigan!!!  I think they first requested some sort of treatment to prevent the delivery’s progression so she could get back on a plane to Texas. (staples? Super glue?) But it was too late. The kid was going to be a Michigander.

How they did this I don’t recall; somehow they got a bag of Texas dirt flown in via overnight delivery. They literally put the dirt under her so they could claim he was ‘born over Texas soil’.