Begin at the beginning

I was born not only fully conscious, but also cut my own umbilical cord. My mother was really into providing her first born with a good start, and therefore kept a set of headphones attatched to her burgeoning belly for twenty four hours a day after the first trimester, and kept a steady stream of audio books flowing. I completed a university level education by absorbing a steady stream of info from all the content mainlined into my brain, and being a fetus sleep was not an issue. I never slept, I subsisted on a diet of nutrients from my mother's blood supply and knowledge from the headphones. I could not wait to develop enough to leave the womb, I had so much to say, many questions to ask and a mother to become acquainted with. My birth went disastrously wrong though, and rather than the beginning of my life was nearly the end. When the time came and I felt the rhythmic contractions that signaled my impending trip to the world, I was excited and as the labor progressed I made my way into position and prepared to greet the world. I was close to the opening of the birth canal when I stopped moving forward and felt a tightening constriction around my neck. In my haste to exit the womb I had allowed the umbilical cord to loop itself around my neck, and with each contraction it tightened itself around my neck. I knew I had little time before the blood supply to my brain would be constricted and brain damage would occur so I had to act fast. I wiggled an arm free, twisted and thrust my tiny limb into the coldness that is the world. I finger-spelled the word "scalpel" two or three times in quick succession. Luckily the doctor had done some volunteer work among deaf laplanders in Finland and quickly and without hesitation handed me the scalpel. I was very careful bringing the sharp instrument back into my soft home so as not to cause further problems. I then cut the cord, thereby freeing myself to be born.