Wednesday, November 05, 2008

A LUE Baby Story (for Subspace Beacon)

Once upon a time (16yrs, 5mos, 22days), in So-So California, a baby boy was born to Mary-LUE and her husband, Paul.  It was a long day of labor, induced around six in the morning and concluding around six that evening after 3 1/2 hours of pushing.  (Yes.  3 1/2.  Hours.)  Baby LUE was 8 lbs., 13 oz. with an alien-shaped head, red, irritated eyes, and the tiniest bit of blond fuzz on top of his head.  

Mary-LUE was exhausted.  Paul was exhausted.  Sister-in-law-LUE, who was also present for the birth, was exhausted.  Approximately 24 hours earlier, this episode of Murphy Brown was on tv:




Mary-LUE, Paul, and Sister-in-law-LUE sat together watching this episode laughing. A kind of hee, hee, haw, haw laugh that seemed to say, "This is so funny. Ha, Ha. This is so funny. I'm not nervous about tomorrow. Tomorrow's delivery will be nothing like this. Hee. Haw. Help me!"

Well, Mary-LUE's labor was not a pretty site.  It would have been a lot funnier if Diane English would have written it, but like Murphy Brown's labor and delivery, there was lots of pain, lots of people trying to help, a time when Mary-LUE didn't think she could do it, and then this:


(Teen-LUE facsimile)

Well, actually, first there was this:



And the LUE family lived happily ever after... until the next delivery 7 years, 52 weeks later. But that's a story for another day.


Historical Note: The same day that Baby-LUE was born, Murphy Brown made headlines when Dan Quayle criticized her for promoting unwed motherhood.


5 down, 25 to go

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yeah! A baby story. Thank you.

Obviously Murphy Brown was promoting single parenting -- look at how glamourous she makes it all appear! My husband recently referred to Sarah Palin as "Dan Quayle for the New Millenia!"

When this episode first aired (16 years ago!! HUH?) I was in hysterics when Miles lunged to catch the baby. It still cracks me up.

And your Bob looks an awful like our dog. I'm sure we've got a similar photo: baby in bucket in sunbeam, dog starring at the camera with a "What the..." kind of expression. Very funny.

Mel said...

Happy birthday to him.
And happy birth day to you, mom.

Yup....laughed at Murphy Brown. Gosh, what memories......

Anonymous said...

wow, that was 16 years ago?

I'm glad you made it through. I was in shock when they told me at 39 weeks that I was going to have to have a c-section, but in hindsight, it certainly eliminated a lot of my personal fears.

Boy, he looks tall for 2 1/2 years old. Great photo :)

Anonymous said...

has it been that long since that aired?!!

happy birthday to him