So I’m at the hospital yesterday visiting my aunt after her surgery, and I think, “This is the hospital where I was born, and I’d like to see my birth records.” I was born premature, and was ijn the hospital in an incubator for months, and Mom said I almost died. I’ve always wanted to confirm this and see the records of what actually happened.
During lunch I call the records department at the hospital, and leave a message.
Much to my surprise, a records department person calls me back ten minutes later. (I was expecting to get a message a few days later, not immediate service…!) We talk, and I give her my name and birthdate. I hear tapping on the computer. Then she says, I don’t see anything on the computer. Are you sure that was the right date? Were you known by any other name?"
I reply, “No…” We go around a little but with more questions. But I’m unaware of anything unusual. Unless all the stories my relatives have said were wrong, I was born on one specific date, with one specific name, both well-known to me, and there was no doubt about it. But the hospital has NO record of my birth.
Unfortunately I don’t have my birth certificate with me, so I can’t give her its reference number. That would provide a second check. I’m going to have to do some more calling. But as far as I can tell right now, I was not born in the hospital every one says I was.
My aunt (home now, and doing well) and cousin are very amused by the whole thing. I haven’t told my sister yet.
Perhaps you were filed without a proper first name, also - it used to be somewhat common for people’s early official paperwork to be filed with the first name listed as “Baby Girl”, “Baby Boy” or “Female” or “Male”.
I read somewhere that in certain areas that it was actually more usual than not for babies to get listed that way in hospital records.
That would be my guess. I assume the OP is 20-40 years old, so the records back then were only on paper. And why would they bother to digitize decades-old birth records?
It sounds like the records clerk expected to find the birth cetificate in the database. Perhaps the records were digitized some time in the past, but the OP’s was missed.
You’ll have to convince them to go find the original paper copy, which is probably in some dusty old box somewhere.
My father was named after his father. My grandmother was pretty doped up/exhausted/woozy/whatever from the birth. When someone asked her the baby’s name, she said ‘Bobby Jr.’ So my dad’s birth certificate said his name was ‘Bobby Junior [surname]’ instead of ‘Robert Newton [surname]’. He never went by that. I don’t know if he ever got it officially sorted out, but it didn’t keep him from joining the Army, Navy, and FAA.
Don’t feel bad. Reality is an illusion. Unless it’s not. Either way, in the vast scheme of things, it won’t matter. Unless it does. Does that help ? I didn’t think so.
I hope you haven’t been taking the personal deduction on your income tax returns. When the IRS finds out you’re not a person, they may well come after you.
I don’t think hospitals keep medical data forever; I think by law it’s 7 years or something like that. Past that point, I think your birth certificate is pretty much all you’ll have.
We just had a baby a month ago and most of his paperwork says “Baby Boy” because we had a hard time picking a middle name. And the rest has his name misspelled. Sure it can’t be a typo?
