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

[OhWhatFuckeryIsThisNow]

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?

If my dad hadnt failed his final year at uni he wouldnt have had to find a room to rent...rented from my mum, 4 months later they were married...

My mother found a lost item and while handing it in my dad turned up looking for it. Without which they may not have met and I (and therefore DD) wouldn't be here.

My mum and Dad met in the Ritz dance hall in Manchester he lived a couple of miles away from the city centre but my mum lived about 25 miles away ,early 70,s so presumably public transport wasent that great ,I don't think she went out in Manchester a,lot ,mind you my Dad would never have been there if his parents haden ,t decided to emigrate from Ireland some twenty years before ,my rise met her now ex husband in a night. Club in our home town ,nothing unusual in that ,but we never went to that night club as it was all dance / chart music and we were more interested in Rock music ,but were persuaded by a friend ,so I guess her two boys wouldn't be here but for fate intervening

Sister*

My grandparents met, during ww2 , when a mutual friend told them that they knew someone from the same small town. The rest they say is hisory.

My dad's first wife died from cancer sadly so without that happening, my mum and dad wouldn't have met years later. Bit of a whirlwind romance it seems as she was pregnant with me roughly a year after they'd met and had already got married

If a consultant doctor from a completely different hospital who wasn't even meant to be at this hospital who happened to be an expert on meningitis hadn't passed baby me and my mother at the hospital.

The staff had been treating my (young) mother like she had been an unfit parent asking if she had been nipping or hurting me as they confused the rash with bruises and nip marks.

The doctor passed and saw me and asked my mother if he could take my temperature and do an exam on me, he then immediately started shouting at staff get her in a bath of ice water now! This child is dying etc
I had meningococcal meningitis with septicaemia. I was the first child in a spate of similar cases in a local outbreak but because I was the first it hadn't been on the radar so to speak.

I spent nearly 4 months I think in hospital but I survived. Iv been left with some life long issues but I'm here.

Later he told her I was probably about an hour or so away from death.

Thankyou mr

My mum was pregnant with me and she was waiting for her friends to pick her up but decided to walk to the shop. They turned up and left because she wasn't there. They crashed, back of the car where my mum would of been sat was completely caved in

Had Dad not stopped off at the local for a pint on the way home I wouldn't have been here. I found it very sad when I was little that my family wouldn't have been as it was.
Had I not been on the dating site that night I wouldn't have met my husband and my daughter wouldn't be here today.

My maternal grandfather was in the Royal Navy during World War 1. He was in command of one of the landing boats at Gallipoli. He was smoking a cigarette and accidently dropped it. As he bent down to pick it up a bullet whizzed over his head where he had been standing and killed his second-in-command instead. But for that fumble I wouldn't be here.

Mums family moved to Birmingham from Manchester, Dads from the south! If she hadn't accidently sat on him at a dance! Plus a cap failure on honeymoon.....

If it wasn't for a Nazi sympathiser in a US dockyard during WW2 I wouldn't be here. Dad's ship was sabotaged and they had to find a dry dock quickly after finding out crossing the Atlantic. Mum had been sent to South Africa by the WRNS and that was where the first available dry dock was. The ship was originally going back to the UK before they found the sabotage so Dad would never have ended up in South Africa otherwise.

My newborn daughter could have died had an experienced midwife not been concerned about how quiet she was, so took her to NICU and they diagnosed Group B Strep.

If my DM hadn't had antibiotics upsetting her stomach (causing the pill to fail) I wouldn't be here!

DC2 wouldn't be here but for my body deciding to ovulate after 6 months of nothing coinciding with lack of caution on our part...

My granny arranged a date with granddad and then stood him up. Instead of going home he went round to her house and got talking to her dad. They got on like a house on fire and great granddad persuaded them to go out together.

On his death bed, a couple of years later, Great granddad made granddad promise to always look after his daughter.
So he did. They had a spectacularly unhappy marriage. Granny was unfaithful constantly and at least half of her 8 babies were fathered by other men.
They eventually divorced.
Obviously I'm glad they married and had my dad, he's lovely, but I've often thought that if granddad had just gone home that night he might have had a much happier life.

My grandmother would not have been conceived/ born if her older brother ( 4 years old) hadn’t died of the Spanish flu. He caught the flu and died overnight. His parents ( my great grandparents) struggled to keep him alive in the night but they couldn’t save him.

If my aunt had not overstayed her visa. She got deported in the 1960s and my mum took her fiancé out to a party to cheer him up the night after she left, where she met my dad.

My Grandad was due on next shift working down the mines when there was a massive mining disaster. Had it occurred a couple of hours later he would have been down there and my Dad would never have been born.

On the way to an interview for a teaching job my Dad’s car broke down. He eventually got it restarted and got there 2 hours late. They said sorry that they had just offered it to someone else and it was a shame as he was the best candidate. He soon got a different teaching job in a completely different area of the country. Where my Mum worked. If it hadn’t been for Dads dodgy car I wouldn’t exist.

My Nan was let out of work early one Friday, they'd done a good job and all was finished for the week (factory worker) she decided to go home instead of going out.
Arrived home just in time to, by chance, meet her younger sisters fiancé (sister had been living/working away for months and wasn't expected home that weekend)
Her fiancé almost literally took one look at my Nan and fell in love. My grandad Broke up with my great aunt that weekend and declared undying love to my Nan a couple of weeks later. They were amazing grandparents, lovely people and they were happily married for 60 years.

My great aunt was also a wonderful woman and she and my Nan stayed close - by the time I was born it was a family story we all laughed about, but I always think how much it must have hurt her at the time and I admire how graciously she handled the situation.
I asked her once about what happened and how she forgave my Nan/grandad. She just replied "I loved them both, they were honest, there was nothing to forgive"

My mum’s secondary modern recognising that although she’d failed the 11-plus, she was bright enough to go to grammar school. Where she met my dad.

I wonder how many of these things are chance, and how many are fate?

My mum was going on a blind date with my dads mate but he decided to pull out last minute. My dad said he would go instead.

This was in the 60s

The man my Gran was engaged to was captured in Burma and sent to a POW camp. My Gran and everyone else thought he was dead and my Gran “sought solace” elsewhere - my Mum was the result
Quite a shock for my “grandad” when he eventually made it home to find his fiancée had a 2 year old!
As for my Dc my the boyfriend had to go away and suggested I take a mutual (Male) friend to an event we were due to go to, the rest is history!

I owe my life to the Rocky Horror Picture Show. My mum was engaged to a man who was lovely but quite conservative in his views. They went to see the film. Afterwards my mum was completely blown away by it and excitedly asked him what he thought. He said it was absolutely disgusting. She realised they had completely different outlooks on life and they broke up. If they hadn't, she wouldn't have met my dad and had me. So, thank you Dr Frankenfurter!