Yes, I've always been a pain.

Reader Mindy wrote in and asked to hear about # 42 and #41 in my hot 100 umm..50 list.

#42 was My Mom didn't find out she was pregnant with me until she was 7 months pregnant.

#41 was She had me a week later.

Let your thoughts drift back to a confused time in American history. Troops were still in Vietnam, people worn really, really bad clothes, and hippy love abounded. We are talking 1970.

My Mom is tiny. She seriously has the body of an Olsen twin, except she is more well endowed if you know what I mean. She weighs all of about 105 lbs. When she had my sister and brother, she had serious problems after the births, because her little body just didn't adjust to pregnancy all that well.

If my brother was a boy, they were supposed to tie her tubes. I say "were" because Opppps! They forgot. My Mother was furious, as she had been told over and over that if she had any more children, she might not live through it again.

So they forgot to tie her tubes and my pissed off Mother went back on the pill. She meant to go back in and get it done, but it was a bigger deal back then, and she had a 4 year old and a newborn. She didn't trust my Dad with the toaster, much less two children by himself.

It was a bit of a shock 4 years later when she realized she was pregnant again. She still had her period, but as she says, once a woman has a kid, they KNOW when they are pregnant again without any tests. She had taken the pill faithfully, so she didn't get it.

She went to the doctor and told him she was pregnant again. They examined her and gave her a pregnancy test. She was not pregnant, according to all the doctors.

So my Mom went through morning sickness and started to gain weight. This was attributed to the fact that she was told she couldn't have any more kids, and that women have this internal need to have babies. Basically, they told her she was fucking nuts. A false pregnancy if you will.

I did not help matters one bit. My Mom said as the pregnancy went along and I started to move, I would never do it when there were any witnesses around. She said I'd move like crazy, and the minute someone would come in the room I would stop.

On December 12th, 1970, my Father had enough. My Mom was an emotional wreck. The doctors said her changing body was all something in her mind. It wasn't until HE escorted her to the Doctor and demanded more tests that they said, "Whoopsy! You are pregnant!"

I can't imagine a time when what a woman said meant so little. That it would take a man to get them to actually do something. My mom said it wasn't until my Dad insisted that she was pregnant that they would actually do another internal examine, which of course was when I was found.

They determined that she was around 7 months pregnant, give or take a week. The very dangerous scenario in this whole fiasco was my Mom had RH negative blood, and she didn't have the shots you are supposed to have in those early months of pregnancy. She also didn't have any pre-natal care, and was taking the pill this whole time.

Damn. They gave her the worst scenarios from I wouldn't be "right" (no comments from the peanut gallery) to I would be deformed or mentally challenged.

I guess I decided I had wreaked enough havoc and made her worry enough, so I came just a week later, on December 19, 1970. At least she didn't have to worry too long, right?

I was healthy except for not being "done" enough. I was in an incubator for a week. My Native American Grandparents came up and insisted that my Mother breast feed me, as I would need it. My Mom said back then people believed that breast milk wasn't as nourishing as formula, so she had never done it. She also had great respect for my Grandparents, so she did it. I was the only child that got breast fed out of the three of us (neener neener neener).

On December 25, 1970, I came home from the hospital, clad in a Santa Clause suit. I am pretty sure that even though I was only a week old, as soon as they started putting that Santa suit on me, I realized just how bad my birthday sucked ass.

They continued to worry about me until I was two, because I wouldn't talk. Not a Mom or Dad or nothing. At first they thought autism, but I had no trouble with being cuddled and laughing and smiling and all that jazz.

My Dad always says it's just because I didn't have anything to say. Then, at the tender age of two, my older brother took my baby doll away from me and was teasing me. I said, "Give it back you jerk!" Imagine having that in your baby book as your first words...

I haven't shut the fuck up since.