Every year on my birthday, no matter my age or hers, my beloved mother, Betty, would always retell the story of my birth. Her big blue eyes would light up, and with a sweet smile, she would recount the first time she set eyes on me, waxing on about what an easy birth it was.

Of course it was easy because she was knocked out for the entire experience.

Unlike today, when a baby’s birth is Instagramed from start to finish by enthusiastic parents, no family member witnessed my birth.

Both my parents were fast asleep.

My mom was out for the count thanks to a heavy dose of Demerol and Scopolamine, and my father was snoozing back home. No pacing the hospital waiting room for Marvin. Once Betty went into labor, he dropped her off at St. Joseph’s Hospital and skedaddled back to their apartment in Far Rockaway to be with my brother Andy.

No one but me would remember my birth.

So today, on my birthday, I remember.

By March 28, 1955, my lease in Mom’s comfy womb was nearly up, and the option for renewal was out of the question.

A creature of comfort, I was unenthusiastic about the prospect of relinquishing the premises and would have been happy to stay put indefinitely. Although the cozy quarters had become a bit claustrophobic and there wasn’t much of a view, you just couldn’t beat the amenities.

Regardless of my reluctance to leave, Mom was more than happy to serve an eviction notice on me.

Moments to Remember Operation Baby

The Stork is as Tame as a household pet! Childbirth is so much easier thanks to drugs and research.” Vintage ad Lederle 1951

Birthin’ Babies was serious business, and my mother Betty made sure she was prepared for “Operation-Baby.  She would never have dreamed of giving birth without the help of both pain-eliminating and memory-erasing miracle drugs. The combination of drugs promised to end the drudgery of childbirth. Mama had no knowledge of what occurs between the time she is given the injection and several hours later when the effects wore off.

Though there was some chatter about “natural childbirth” promoted by French physician Dr. Ferdinand Lamaze, for most women, that was a foreign concept.

“The patient,” reasonable mid-century American doctors were quick to point out, “who was interested in participating in her own childbirth experience was probably infantile, neurotic and downright delusional.”

My all-American Mom had an all-American delivery. Thoroughly up to date, she was thoroughly sedated and fastidiously prepped for “the operation.”

Lying flat on her back on the surgical table, the nurses strapped her feet in stirrups to make sure that she wasn’t going anywhere in case she changed her mind, while her wrists were securely tied to the sides of the table to prevent her from touching the sterile drapes when they were applied.

The Great Escape

My very last meal while still in the womb, the one meant to carry me through my big breakout to freedom, was a healthy dose of -“I don’t know what I’d do without it -Demerol” and “I don’t remember nuthin’ bout birthin’ no babies – Scopolamine,” the preferred aperitif for the boomer baby.

As the drugs began to slowly take effect on my mother, the attending nurse tried soothing Mom. Gently, taking away her cigarette and stroking her forehead, she encouraged my still jittery mother to think of pleasant, happy places.

Soon, Betty began muttering about the 1939 N.Y. World’s Fair of her childhood. Fifteen years earlier, as an impressionable 13-year-old, she had been captivated with that futuristic vision of the fair, like so many others. Again and again, visitors were told -“A greater world…a better world….a world which always grows forward…” Her enthusiasm had not faded in time.

That optimistic World of Tomorrow, bursting with brightness, abundance, and color, a spectacle of promise and hope, was so dazzling that it would saturate her dreams of a better world.

Transmitted to me as a child, her fervor for the fair’s inspired future was infectious,  confirming our belief that there was nothing that American ingenuity in science, technology, and industry could not accomplish.

It was unclear whether Mom was speaking in a woozy Demerol haze to the nurses or if her memories of the World’s Fair were meant for me in the womb, to coax me on… I could hear a muffled voice, like a recording, speaking of the wonders of the future now only minutes away. As though on a ride  at General Motors’ famous Futurama, I could hear her say:  

“Just beyond the darkness was the greater possibilities of the World of Tomorrow …New Horizons, new ways of living lay just ahead.”

Meanwhile, in utero, things were happening quickly. Without warning, a great tidal wave of water abruptly washed over me. The peace and quiet of my little tranquil Garden of Eden was all at once disrupted by a violent upheaval, followed by waves after waves of turbulence.

This was not a drill. Reluctant or not, I knew I had to quickly evacuate the premises, abandoning with it any hope of permanency.

How much time did I have, seconds, minutes, days?  I didn’t know. It was a big job getting a delivery organized to operate effectively, but then delivery was a big production or…. a big disaster.

The search and rescue team had to get the job done if I were to survive.

Great tremors, dozens of them in a matter of minutes in many places at once.

I panicked.

Would I be buried or trapped in wreckage of the placenta? Passages out might be blocked by rubble. A large part of my food supply might be knocked out. My water supply cut off. Normal communications could stop.

How much time would I have to prepare?

Terrified, I set out on my first solo journey on a streamlined, frictionless highway. Just ahead at the end of the tunnel, if I should make it, lay the greater possibilities of my own world of tomorrow.

Then with a sudden whoosh, I was out.

Like a mole burrowed deep in the subterranean who first pokes his head out of the ground, I was startled by a blast of bright light, brighter than the sun and the loud ear-piercing noise of the air conditioner sounding like the roar of jets.

I opened my eyes and suddenly today was the tomorrow my mother had dreamt about.

If I could believe my mother, a new world was opening up for me at an ever-increasing rate of progress. A greater world…a better world…a world which always grow forward.

Never sure where Mom ended and I began, she now seemed far, far away.

And where is my Dad in all this?

My father, like all the other fathers-to-be, is nowhere near any of this.

But unlike most of the other nervous, expectant fathers who were sent to the smoky, crowded waiting room to pace the tiled floors and hand out cigars, my father went home and went back to sleep. But that was okay because my mother was in a deep sleep herself.

No one but me would remember my birth.

And now you know.

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