Rounding error
Jan 27, 2009 Heart and spirit, Jocularity
The surprising sixth boy and eighth child made Monday’s mass birth not just remarkable but historic.
“It is quite easy to miss a baby when you’re anticipating seven,” said Dr. Harold Henry, chief of maternal and fetal medicine and one of 46 doctors, nurses and assistants who delivered the children by Caesarean section at Kaiser Permanente Bellflower Medical Center. “Ultrasound doesn’t show you everything.”
Just five minutes after the first birth, the unexpected eighth baby came out at 10:48 a.m.
Well, there goes that. I mean, seven babies at a time is one thing, but eight — now that’s going to leave a mark.
It kind of reminds me of the old joke about the dowager at the luncheon club who needed smelling salts after their guest speaker from the university explained to the ladies all about the age of the solar system. When she came to, they asked her what had gotten her so upset. “Why, the professor’s lecture!” she said. “About the end of the world!”
“Madame,” he said gently, as the color began to return to her face. “You were so moved by my prediction that life on our planet would end in two billion years?”
“Two billion?!” she exclaimed, suddenly reenergized. “Oh my! No wonder! I’d thought you’d said two million!”
