How was I born on the wrong day?

[PossiblyDreaming]

I’ve always thought I was born on a Sunday which always made me feel very smug as a child whenever I saw that nursery rhyme that goes “Monday’s child is fair of face” etc until it gets to Sunday’s child and says how much better kids born on a Sunday are.

Anyway, I was recently filling out some online form where I had to put in my date of birth and it came up on a calendar showing that actually I was born on a Monday. I double checked it with another calendar and, yes, I was definitely born on a Monday. I didn’t think much of it but text my mum to tell her as I thought it was mildly amusing that she’s forgotten when I was born.

Except my mum is 100% adamant that I was born on a Sunday. She remembers it specifically as she made my dad run to the church to drag my grandparents out so that they could watch my brother while he drove her to hospital. My grandparents only ever went to church on a Sunday and my dad was a teacher so if it had been a weekday he wouldn’t have been at home when my mum went into labour. It was mid October so wouldn’t have been a bank holiday. It wasn’t a long labour, I was born a couple of hours later so it wasn’t like my mum was labouring overnight and I was born the next day or anything.

My mum is 70 and fully compos mentis but she can’t get my dad or her parents to corroborate as they’re dead. She is absolutely adamant that I was born on Sunday and now thinks that my birthday was recorded incorrectly and it’s actually the day before the day that I’ve celebrated all my life 😂. I’ve got the original copy of my birth certificate and it says the date that I’ve always thought it was.

I know it doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things but it’s really odd. Is there any really obvious way that I’m missing that might confirm either way? Do I now celebrate my birthday the day before even though all my public records show it as being the next day?

@Techguy, what date have HMRC got for you? Because your NI number is triggered from the Family Allowance/ child benefit records.

[quote Dinoteeth]@Techguy, what date have HMRC got for you? Because your NI number is triggered from the Family Allowance/ child benefit records.[/quote]
Lol - this was in the 50's so I doubt there was much joined-up or crosschecking going on. Also I'm on the mainland, not in Britain so no HMRC. As I said all official documentation says Sunday 6th. I don't know who filled in the family Bible entry, or when. My speculation about my Dad is just that - idle speculation! (I'm in Ireland, BTW)

@Dinoteeth

Could they have been at a funeral or something? What time were you born?

So you think OP’s mum has correctly remembered that her family was at church, but forgotten that it was a funeral? Seems highly unlikely!

@eastegg or something coffee morning, committee meeting, winter cleaning lots of possible reasons for them to be at church other than a Sunday morning service.

I think it's highly unlikely the records are wrong, much more likely the Ops mum has either mixed up the length of time she was in labour or where her parents were collected from or reason they were at church

There was a medication called Twilight Sleep that my mother said was absolutely brilliant - she described it as magical, you had a nap and then woke up as though you'd never had anything at all (she had five very long labours, but describes that one as 'easy' even though she didn't have any 'proper drugs like you get these days').

It was a mixture of morphine and another drug where people had no memory of the bit in the middle. Available pretty much anywhere.

That might answer why she could have no memory of the day changing or of ever being in pain...

That was more like 1910s than the 1970s. Is was a mixture hyocine & morphine, I think.

My daughter was born on Friday 13th

Twilight sleep was still being used in the 1970s in America but it was pretty horrific TBH if you look it up. Having no memory of a traumatic event doesn't mean that your brain hasn't experienced the trauma and you can still get symptoms of PTSD afterwards. Not well understood in those days.

My MIL was knocked out like that when she had DH in the mid 1960s.

@Cookerhood

That was more like 1910s than the 1970s. Is was a mixture hyocine & morphine, I think.

My brother was born in the 1960s.

I'm sure the Queen had a twilight birth for several of her children.

Too posh to push... I think that's too posh to remember!

I was born in the mid 80’s rather than the 70’s. It was a tiny hospital that didn’t even have a doctor outside of office hours and my mum has always been adamant that she didn’t have any form of pain relief as the nurses weren’t allowed to give it to her. When I was pregnant with dc1 she kept going on about how I should make sure that I gave birth in a proper hospital so I could have as many drugs as possible.

That just doesn't sound right to me. I'd have thought gas n air would have been able at least. And possibly the more mid painkillers like paracetamol.

I had an induction all they could give me on the ward was 2x paracetamol and 2x "something else" (I don't know what the other pills were)

Sounds plausible - they would only be able to give gas and air if they had access to it. On call the midwife they aren't giving out paracetamol - you were basically largely expected to just get on with it! My mum had pethidine in the 80s but she said she hated it, it made her hallucinate and affected my breathing.

@BertieBotts

Sounds plausible - they would only be able to give gas and air if they had access to it. On call the midwife they aren't giving out paracetamol - you were basically largely expected to just get on with it! My mum had pethidine in the 80s but she said she hated it, it made her hallucinate and affected my breathing.

Pethidine is still the same now. I didn't have it but the midwife gave it as an option when I was doing my birth plan. You'd think they'd stop offering it really.

Is pethidine the correct name for gas n air?

@Dinoteeth

Is pethidine the correct name for gas n air?

Gas and air is Entonox.

Pethidine is opiate based I think, from memory.

Thanks - I knew it had a technical name but wasn't sure what. 🙂

Yes pethidine is an injection similar to morphine.

Do you or your mum have the little wrist band that gets put on a newborn straight away at a hospital? That usually says "baby so&so(ie.the surname) and the DOB. I have mine from - ahem - let's just say half a century ago! If she has it, it's more likely to be the accurate date.