It begins with a birth

David Copperfield is born in Blunderstone, in Suffolk, on a Friday at 12 to a mother who is young, beautiful, timid and weak-minded, and a father who passed away six months prior and who was twice the age of his wife. In the house, at the time of his birth were his mother, the servant, Miss Peggotty, Peggotty's nephew, (presumably) a nurse, a doctor named Mr. Chillip, and an aunt, his father's sister, named Miss Betsey Trotwood (who is determined that the child will be a girl, and should be called "Betsey" after her, and she will be her godmother) but who, upon hearing from Mr. Chillip that the child is indeed a boy, leaves suddenly, never to return.