Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Protection built in.

Meet the Other Phone.
Protection built in.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Chat

Join the discussion and chat with other Mumsnetters about everyday life, relationships and parenting.

Original poster

“If it wasn’t for xxxxxxx I wouldn’t be here.” Weird things to Owe your existence to.

181 replies

OhWhatFuckeryIsThisNow · 08/03/2020 20:31

Inspired by a conversation with dh today. We were driving past the site of the old tb hospital in our home town. His grand parents met there when gf was a patient and Dgm was a nurse. “So if it wasn’t for tb I wouldn’t be here.”
So is there anyone else who wouldn’t be around if not for something unusual?

OP posts:
WhatNowFrantic · 08/03/2020 22:59

If my great grandad hadn't missed boarding a boat for his new job below deck, then I wouldn't be here. That boat was the Titanic

StCharlotte · 08/03/2020 23:00

If abortion had been legal in 1963... Confused

willowpatterns · 08/03/2020 23:23

If my grandmother's first husband hadn't died of diabetes, then she would never have met and married my grandad, and gone on to have my dad.

If my mum's boyfriend hadn't been killed in WW2, she would never have met and married my dad and had me.

My dc wouldn't be here if I hadn't gone to the dentist one afternoon, I wouldn't have walked past the staff agency next door to the dentist's, seen an ad in the window that appealed to me, walked in on the off-chance, got the job, made friends with someone at work, and through her, met my DH.

Shinyletsbebadguys · 08/03/2020 23:40

This is a wierd one but I believe ds2 wouldn't be here if I hadn't worn knee high boots the day before when I went to the day maternity unit.

I had gone due to reduced movements but the little devil had danced around and performed the splits on the monitor and everything seemed ok. A midwife I had vaguely got chatting to a few times (I was Gd and had choleostasis so wa sint here a lot) commented that she liked my knee high boots. I commented that I loved them but they had randomly become really uncomfortable and tight this morning but had been fine yesterday. She looked at me strangely and checked my blood pressure (fine at the time ). She decided that I had swelling and said to make sure she wanted to keep me another hour or so.

I was really irritated. However she had been really good to me so I did. My blood pressure started to rise.

They kept me in to monitor and admitted me to a ward. The next day I went down for a scan in the same unit (no idea why , sheer absolute luck that it was the scan room on the side of that unit where they knew me) , on the table for the scan I suddenly screamed as the headache felt like someone had hit me in the head with a baseball bat and started to lose consciousness.

The same midwife and doctor that had met me raced into the room when the scan operator called them and that midwife , absolute no exaggeration, got me into a wheelchair and ran me through the hospital (I was now in and out of consciousness) while the doctor rang up to the suite. When we got up there an entire team met her out of the lift and raced me into the delivery suite. (Missing out the prep bit in this explanation obviously, there was a whole story there ).

Ds2 was very early and extremely unwell and I spent a long time in icu and him in NICU, but hes now a happy lairy tasmanian devil of a 4 year old (who is currently sleeping with 4 trains 5 teddy bears and a train ticket).

If she hadn't commented on my boots and then kept me in there is no way we would have made it if Hellp syndrome (which is what it was ) had reacted like that at home.

I will forever be grateful to her.

Shinyletsbebadguys · 08/03/2020 23:40

Sorry should have explained she was sending me home when she commented about the boots

INeedToGetHealthy · 08/03/2020 23:40

If it wasn't for a visiting doctor working in the antenatal ward at the hospital the day my DS1 was was born, neither of us would be alive to this day.
I was 27 weeks pregnant and presenting with what looked like gallstones. Except, the scans showed no gallstones at all. The Dr, Mr Dimitri, recognised my symptoms from a case that he had seen once before in his home country. The condition was called HELLP Syndrome and I was rushed in for an emergency c-section. My family was told that I was dying and that my chances of survival were very slim. My baby was not expected to survive but he will be 21 this year.

Awwlookatmybabyspider · 09/03/2020 00:12

Quite a few.. My nan (Dads mum) was going on a date. Her sister and her didn’t get on in their younger days. She got a dirty dish cloth and rang it out on my nans hair. She couldn’t contact her date as there were no phones or very few. Had she gone though and it worked out. She wouldn’t have had my dad. There for I wouldn’t have been here.
Also my nan almost died as a child due to I think it was dyptheria.
My Dad tried to end his life just over a year before my sister was born. Had someone not found him or he had passed away at that time my sister wouldn’t be here and nor would my nephews.
The night my mum met my dad. He had arranged to meet someone. However she didn’t turn up so my dad went to another pub and met my mum who was the barmaid. Ironically my dad ended up living on the same street where he was meant to be meeting his date.

TheVanguardSix · 09/03/2020 00:14

My dad was a 16 year old POW clearing land mines on a beach. He saw some of his mates get blown up but he slipped through the net. His mother- my grandmother- survived the bombing of Dresden.
Somewhere between a miracle and a total crapshoot, life shows up and stakes its claim. Every day really and truly is a gift.

Muddlingalongalone · 09/03/2020 00:32

If my childhood GP hadn't been to Africa & seen children with meningitis I would probably have died when I was 4 months old.
He picked it up when other doctors had missed it and I was rushed straight to hospital for lumbar puncture.

iswhois · 09/03/2020 00:36

If my DMs first husband hadn't cheated on her with her best friend

WorraLiberty · 09/03/2020 00:37

My sister died very suddenly and right out of the blue a couple of weeks after her 36th birthday.

If it wasn't for that, I never would have got back in touch after 15 yrs with my (now) husband who came to the funeral. He was/is my brother's best mate and had moved a long way away.

So our son would never have been born.

Pieceofpurplesky · 09/03/2020 00:42

Of my great grandfather had been bothered about the scandal he caused by marrying a (very) young Romany gypsy girl. Luckily he wasn't and married her - she went on to have lots of kids, one being my grandad who had a wild streak. He used to tell me stories of his travels selling horses before he settled down with my gran. It was only later in life I realised he must have lived half gypsy half non gypsy life. Wish I had asked him more about it.

AlunWynsKnee · 09/03/2020 00:47

The 11+, WW2, WW1, my great aunt's conception and a pantomime.

Awwlookatmybabyspider · 09/03/2020 00:51

Probably outing but my DD owes her existence to Julien Cope.

Why is her dad.ConfusedGrin

ineedaholidaynow · 09/03/2020 00:51

I would be alive but someone different. Adopted as a baby, and also my adoptive parents wanted a boy and a girl. If they had been offered a girl first instead of my brother 3 years before I was born, then I would have been adopted by someone else.

Also glad (for me) that the Abortion Act hadn’t been passed until after I was born.

Walnutwhipster · 09/03/2020 00:59

I have quite a few but my favourite is DH's grandfather was badly injured during WW1. He was brought back from the front to convalesce in an English hospital. He fell in love with one of his nurses and they later married.
DH and I only met because my best friend surprised me with tickets to see Billy Connolly. It was a Monday night. I started work very early at that time so never ever went out during the week. I'd booked the next day off so we decided to go for a drink afterwards where we bumped into a friend of her brother. Long story short, we were married nine months later and have just celebrated our silver wedding anniversary.

Flairhead · 09/03/2020 01:07

My grandad was in the navy during WW2. One day he was on deck (he worked on aircraft carriers) and slipped. He went careering towards the edge and would have gone overboard if another sailor hadn't grabbed the hood of his duffel coat. He'd never have met my granny and as he was an only child, the family line would have stopped there. Quite a sobering thought.

TaterWaffle · 09/03/2020 01:44

Norway.

My mum worked in public relations. The company was sending a bunch of journalists and a photographer there to promote tourism.

There was a little do at the office before the trip commenced. My dad (the photographer) took a shine to my rather younger mum.

On the train to Newcastle to get the ferry, Dad went along to the boss’s cabin, where they drank whisky and permission was secured to ask my mum on a date on returning to London.

So here we are, and it’s a fine reason to drop a bomb on Norway.

MrNobody · 09/03/2020 05:08

If it wasn't for my mum having a miscarriage after the birth of her second child, I wouldn't be here.

They were only going to have two children and my sister was already around.

lyralalala · 09/03/2020 06:06

My three youngest children wouldn’t be here if DH’s first wife hadn’t died. If the Dr that refused to refer her because she was too young for cancer hadn’t done so she’d have stood a good chance of survival.

It’s a weird one for me as I can’t imagine life without him or the kids, but for DS18 I know life losing his Mummy as a toddler has been a massive impact

Youneverknowwhatyourgonnaget · 09/03/2020 06:14

My grandmas first husband died at Dunkirk.if he wouldn’t of died she would never have met my grandad and had my dad and so me and my kids wouldn’t of been here.

Dogsaresomucheasier · 09/03/2020 06:28

ww2 has a lot to do with my existence. If my mum had not been an evacuee and a determined school truant she might not have ended up the factory tea lady pushing a trolley round the Woolwich arsenal where she met my father.
If she’d been better informed that menopause was rather more than a single missed period she might have been a bit more careful and not had me in her mid forties, either.

exLtEveDallas · 09/03/2020 06:34

If my dad hadn’t got a hair cut and my mum hasn’t fallen off her bike in shock, I wouldn’t be here.

If I wasn’t precious about my new car and it hadn’t snowed I wouldn’t have spent the weekend partying with DH and his friends, and DD wouldn’t be here.

On a more somber note, if my midwife hadn’t been insistent that I went to the hospital every time my BP rose because she “had a feeling something was wrong” neither DD or I would be here.

MsTSwift · 09/03/2020 06:36

Badminton

NearlyGranny · 09/03/2020 06:37

Morse code! My DF was conscripted in WW2 and offered the choice of Royal Signals or a tank regiment. He'd been trying to volunteer for the navy before his papers came.

The signals quickly discovered he had very acute hearing and was as sharp as a tack so having trained him in Morse, they kept him on as an instructor and he never left Yorkshire for the rest of the war!