2007-04-21 The Circumstances Surrounding My Birth (Part I)

I was born in 1979, on October 9th, exactly 39 years after John Lennon. I had quite a normal childhood, except for two things that happened in the first year of my life. Of course I don't remember either of them, but they are still worth mentioning, since their effects are still noticeable today. (Oh my god, this almost sounds like an autobiography. Don't expect too much!)

During my birth something went terribly wrong. One of my mothers arteries burst or something, and she almost bled to death. They gave her blood from the bottle, but there was no way to save her womb, it had to be removed for good. Had I been born at home instead of in a hospital, she would have died for sure. But even worse than the removal of her womb was the fact that one of these blood bottles was contaminated with hepatitis C and my mom was infected. It took them until 1990 to develop a test and apply it to all blood bottles. After that they needed another ten years to develop a cure called interferon therapy. My mom had two rounds, the first being cancelled because she started losing hair. After 25 years of hepatitis C, she finally made it two years ago.
Can you imagine what it must be like being 27 years old, getting away with your life and knowing that you won't be allowed to drink alcohol for the rest of your life? It would be hard sometimes, not to take it out on your kid, wouldn't it? Well, my mom never did. Never. Neither did she pamper or over-protect me, which would have been the natural thing to do with an only child. She just did a great job.

Well, that was the first thing about my birth. The second thing will come tomorrow and has my dad in it, eventually. The picture on the left shows my mom in 1979 (as you might have guessed from her silhouette). Note the glasses and the flare. What a decade!