Lack Of Actions Leads To Home Contractions

(My mum is pregnant with me. My parents don’t have a car, so the emergency plan for labour starting while my dad is at work is for my grandmother to pick up my dad, and then take the both of them to the hospital.)

Mum: “Mum, it’s happening right now!”

Grandmother: “I’ll be right there!”

(More time passes than Mum expects, and the pain is bad. She gets in the shower to try to ease it. My two-year-old brother comes in.)

Brother: “What are you doing?”

Mum: “It’s okay, sweetheart; I’m fine.”

(My brother proceeds to join my mother in the shower, fully clothed. Mum gets both of them out quickly, but is in too much pain to change my brother’s clothes. She calls my grandmother again, but there’s no answer. She goes into the bedroom and tries to breathe. The phone rings.)

Mum: “[Brother], can you get the phone please?”

Brother: “Hello? …no, mummy can’t come to the phone.”

Mum: “Tell them the baby’s coming, [brother].”

Brother: “She’s in the shower.”

(The phone rings several more times, and my brother supplies increasingly alarming answers to why mum can’t come to the phone, such as ‘she’s asleep on the kitchen floor’ and ‘she’s dead’. My grandmother FINALLY shows up.)

Grandmother: “Are you ready to go?”

Mum: “I’m not going anywhere! The baby’s coming now! What took you so long?!”

Grandmother: “Well, I had to have a shower, and put makeup on.”

Mum: “What?!”

Grandmother: “You need to get to the hospital—”

Mum: “Not happening; change [brother], he’s soaking wet, and tell [dad] to call an ambulance!”

(My dad does so, and my grandmother comforts my brother, who, by this stage, has no idea what’s going on and is panicking. My mum sits, legs crossed, on the bed, trying to wait for the ambulance, but she can’t. She stands, gives birth, and catches me. My brother gets away from my grandmother and runs into the room.)

Brother: “THERE’S BLOOD EVERYWHERE! THERE’S BLOOD EVERYWHERE!”

Grandmother: “Oh, that’s not blood; that’s the baby’s poo. Naughty baby; pooing everywhere.”

(My mother is in shock, and doesn’t move. The ambulance arrives, and the paramedics cut the cord and get me wrapped up in a blanket.)

Paramedic #1: “I am AMAZED you managed to catch her!”

Paramedic #2: “I’m amazed you managed to stay in control at all with all this going on around you! Lucky there were no complications! With the baby, I mean.”

(Both mum and I come out of the whole thing fine, but my brother spends a year poking his head under toilet doors, asking people what coloured poo they are having, thanks to my grandmother.)