Slice of life #18 ~ Random Picture day

This weeks Slice of Life is Random Picture day.  Because I seem to have lost a scrapbook with a lot of my old pictures from me as a child (think it is in one of the boxes that I haven't ever unpacked).  I chose a picture that I had scanned into my computer.  This is when I was about 10 day old.   I was born at 28 weeks and my twin sister Lynnette didn't make it.  I weighted in at 1 lbs 14 ozs and 12 inches long.  I was in the hospital for 12 weeks after I was born before my parents could take me home.  This is how my Mom and Dad got to hold me  at first.

There is a story about my birth.  My parents were living in Rexburg, ID when they found out they were having twins.  They found out about 2 weeks before we were born.  My Mom was going into labor just after Mother's Day and the Dr's knew they didn't have the set up to handle preemie babies(remember this was 1978) so they sent her by ambulance to the University of Utah Hospital in Salt Lake City.    The only ambulance that was available was a brand new one that had no radio.  The ambulance goes speeding down I-15 to Salt Lake City, and the Highway Patrol is trying to get a hold of them to find out what the emergency was,  and can't because there was no radio.  So the Highway Patrol thought it was a stolen ambulance.  And they then got enough cops there to surround the ambulance south of Pocatello or so.  When they found out what was going on, they called a helicopter from Salt Lake City to come and get my parents.  They got my parents to the hospital and I was born at 10:10am.  My parents had lost a baby just nine months before I was born, so when they told my mom that there was a good chance I wasn't going to survive, she just knew that I was going to.  I have 4 younger sister that were born in the 7 years after I was born, and my mother was on bed rest for most of her pregnancies to help them from coming early.  When I was born my lungs were not fully developed, and I have a hearing loss and wear hearing aids in both ears that is said to be a side effect of being born so early.

It has been 32 years since this day, and I am grateful, that the medicine and technology was around to help keep me here on this earth, even though it has come a long ways in the last 32 years as well.

Ruth & Irene 7 days old

In Jan 2009 when I gave birth to my twins, my husband didn't want to be in the room with me.  He didn't like the thought of them cutting me open for a c-section, I was privileged to have my Mom in the operating room with me, and I think she enjoyed getting to see the birth of the next generation of twins, born from one of her twin daughters.  I love you Mom and Dad, Thanks for being there for me!

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