Firstborn

Went to Asda this morning - nil blipping opportunities. Nap this afternoon. Still no blip. Looking around indoors for an " F " blip for my February challenge and came up with this " Firstborn.". My parents first child.... ME.

Not my Mam's first pregnancy as before me she had a miscarriage or a stillborn baby. All shrouded in mystery and never talked about.

I was born in 1951 in The Princess Mary Hospital in Newcastle. The details surrounding my birth are sketchy - in my mind anyway. Don't you wish you had asked more questions when the older generation were alive. My Mam died in 1981 when she was 56 so my children never knew her. Such a shame they never had a Grandma - my husbands mother had also died many years previously. They did have 2 Grandad's for a while though.

Anyway back to 1951. At the time my Mam was pregnant she was recovering from TB. She had been sent away to a Sanatorium on Teesside and then come home to Gateshead. At the time I was born she had one lung collapsed - for some medical reason???? When I was born I was taken straight away from my Mam. " They " weren't sure if it would be OK for me to be with my Mam due to the TB thing. Anyway a while later when my Mam was discharged from hospital she still hadn't seen me or held me. She was in the back of the ambulance to be taken home and I was handed to her - " Someone " had decided that it was OK for her to have me.

It's hard to imagine what she felt being deprived of her baby and then all of a sudden she sees me for the first time and has to take me home and look after me.

So I was the firstborn. My brother John came along in 1954 - he was born at home. Even though I was only 3 I remember all the commotion and a new baby crying. Then in 1964 my brother Colin was born. After Colin's birth my Mam has post-natal depression. Looking back I think this is what it was but back then it wasn't diagnosed as that - don't think there was such a thing in those days. She just had to get on with it. She hardly left the house for years. I was the one who took Colin everywhere with me - took him on his first day at school etc. Was mistaken for his schoolgirl mother on many occasions!.