Coralee's Contemplations: My Birth Story

I'm joining a group of moms where every Thursday we write a blog post about topics about our own personal history. (See details about joining us HERE!) I thought it would be fun to share this on my blog.

This week's topic is: The story of your birth / How you got your name

I studied took a Child Development class in College - actually it was my major - officially, Marriage, Family and Human Development. For one assignment I had to interview my parents about my first three years of life. I found this assignment, so it was helpful in giving me some details I didn't know off-hand.

I was born in Vernon, British Columbia, Canada on May 22, 1978 at 9:06 am. I weighed 7 lbs 4 oz at birth. I was born 2 days after my "estimated due date". My mom's contractions started pretty hard around 3:00 am on Monday the 22nd. She labored at home until the contractions were about 10 minutes apart and they went to the hospital around 6:30 am. I did have my cord wrapped around my neck when I was born - but had no other complications.

My birth announcement

My parents are Joyce and Anthony. My father was 48 years old when I was born, and my mother 39. She turned 40 three weeks after I was born.

I was the seventh and final child in our family. There were three girls and three boys in the family when I was born. My siblings names and ages at my birth were: Melanie - 18, Scott - 16, Daryl - 15, Curtis - 11, Sheila - 9, Leilani - 5 1/2.

Around one month

My parents debated awhile about my name. I was born on Queen Victoria's birthday, and because we were living in Canada at the time, my dad wanted to name me Victoria. My mom didn't like that name, so they thought for awhile more. My mom had a Beehive advisor (church leader) when she was 12 that had a baby that was named Coralee. My mom always like that name and after telling my dad, he agreed. They settled on Coralee - spelled as one word.

I've pretty much always liked my name. It's not very common. The only problem I've had is people wanting to spell it as two words, with a capital L - Cora Lee.

My mom recorded the following about her breastfeeding experience: "I breast fed Coralee. She was born on Monday. Tuesday she had a lot of mucus so [she] chocked easily, had to suction and clean throat often. On Wednesday, she was very hungry but my milk had not come in and my nipples were very sore, but I kept trying to nurse often."

When I was discharged from the hospital, I weighed 6 lbs 13 oz.

My mom records, "On June 7, the nurse came by and checked Coralee's weight. She had lost weight [I weighed 6 lbs 3oz] so Dr. Remington suggested I try to nurse her every two hours. This was hard to get up every two hours during the night and wake her up and feed her. I wanted very badly to breastfeed so I continued. Finally on 15 June I went to the bottle, totaly using Similac baby formula."