For an explicable reason, all of my seven daughters’ birthdays are clustered around or on special days.
Between 1 December and 2 January our family celebrated five birthdays. Suffice to say, I am all festived out.
We will have a few months break from birthdays before we celebrate my two non-Christmas season babies’ birthdays — around Easter.
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A lot of people think I’m lying when I tell them about how weirdly clustered my children’s birth dates are, but most of their birthdays are truly on, or very close to, significant calendar days, such as a week before Christmas (daughter number two) and then 10 years later daughter number six was born on Aids Day (1 December). That’s two in December.
Daughters one and five were both the second babies to be born on New Year’s Day at Mitchells Plain hospitals — 10 years apart — and both got prizes for their luckily-timed arrivals.
And then, not to be outdone, daughter number four was born on 2 January, locally known as Tweede Nuwejaar — though this year the minstrel festival traditionally celebrated on that day was held later and on a different route, much to the annoyance of the participants.
So, if you are not managing to keep track, that’s another three birthdays over two days a week after Christmas.
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Daughter number three was born on April Fools’ Day — after I went into false labour multiple times in the month before she was born (she pranked me even before birth).
Her birthday usually coincides with the Easter period and the year she turned five, she unwrapped her birthday present and Easter chocolates on the same day. It’s much less fun for her when her birthday falls mid-Lent.
My seventh daughter was born five minutes before Workers’ Day on 30 April, 10 years and one month after her April Fool sister. I think she did it just to thwart her daddy’s planned witticisms because, as my labour approached midnight, he was already practicing saying: “May the first, be the last”.
So, to recap; all my babies born in the same months (December, January and April) did so 10 years apart — and yes, all of my children were born naturally.
And, just to freak you out more, here’s another weirdness — none of them, were born on their expected due dates. Not even the two that were induced due to my gestational diabetes. They were all either early (daughter number two) or late (all the others).
This may be due to their size because they were also bigger than normal due to gestational diabetes.
My smallest baby was daughter number six, who weighed a puny 3,8kg at birth. Their size confused the scans so they were projected to be older than they actually were in utero and therefore their estimated due dates changed with every doctor’s visit — and none of them were correct. The calendar-calculated due dates were also off because it has a built-in two week margin of error.
My point is, my children never showed up when they were expected to, even the last two who were induced because they wouldn’t budge after the first induction attempts and hung around a day longer. Stubborn little buggers.
But what is the point of all this, you might be wondering.
Well, I’m not complaining or harking after ended festivities. To me, this time of year is an annual reminder that God does indeed have a very quirky sense of humour.
– Lauren O’Connor-May
