August 9, 2005
The twins were 7 years old when Kevin was born. Since he was in the incubator in the hospital, and children weren't allowed to be near the babies the nurses let us bring the boys in when no other visitors were there, so they could see their new little brother. I remember it was on Easter Sunday, so the boys took a stuffed rabbit to give to the baby. However, since the rabbit wasn't sterilized it had to be hung outside along the edge of the viewing window. That seemed to satisfy the boys as long as the rabbit had the little brother's name on it. So, there it hung until Kevin was BIG enough to come home, which was the following Mother's Day.
Regarding your question about our first baby, and losing her four hours after her birth. When I got to the hospital late at night with labor pains the only one on duty, in maternity, was a student nurse. During the war there was a shortage of doctors, and nurses, so the ones available weren't called in unless there was a critical need, and then only at the last minute. So, the student nurse gave me a shot to put me to sleep, and since I was just 7 1/2 months along, that was supposed to stop the labor pains. Sometime during the night I woke up and rang for the nurse to tell her the pains had started again, so she gave me another shot. The baby was born the next morning while I was still asleep, and, of course the baby was asleep as well. I have since learned that you should never give those drugs to a patient who is in danger of delivering premature. They tried to tell us that the baby had a heart murmur, but Kevin's doctor told me that her heart had to be o.k. or she would not have lived those four hours. At one time they had Walter all prepped for a blood transfusion, and that was in hope they could thin the drugs in her system, but she was too weak to be transfused. It was terribly difficult to lose her, but I took comfort in knowing that God gave us twins two years later, and they would never have been born, as I would have had to come home if we had had a baby to drag around from Texas to North Carolina to Missouri after she was born. The only places we could find to rent were single rooms in private homes after we left Texas. The only way that I could continue to be with Walter was if we didn't have a child to consider, since the conditions of living were very primitive.