Birth Stories(For Linda)

Before we knew anything at all about sex we knew all about our birth stories. Our Mam would recall & regale us all (setting the table...peeling spuds...sweeping out the hall) with the intimate details of all our births. “Tell us of US again...Mam...tell of us again! ” I was small (2lbs 2 ounces) hardly anything at all. A mere scrap of human being. Blathin Ashling was even smaller (1 lb something or other) ...a little miracle. Was it Deirdre with the cord wrapped around her neck fighting both Life & Death ‘til she was blue In the face Or Grainne with the cord so thin she was born just in the nick of time & the cord(just a hair’s breath) floats eternally now (in a glass of formaldehyde still) for doctors to astonish & marvel at. And how there being no incubators when I came into being they had to wrap me up in cotton wool (as if I were a precious thing) in order to keep me warm but I wasn’t having any of it kicking my way out of the stuff only for them to repackage me again! And again...& again. And here(in 1956) I arrive on the scene tip toeing out into Life with cool coal black full length sideburns ready to rock & roll man as the labour ward radio played the hit of the day “CE SERA...SERA! ” It’s almost as if I can still hear Doris singing our whatevers will bes. Our birth story each our first fairy story & we the Prince & Princesses of it all.