July 19,1975 (sad day for our family!)

Was a day that totally changed our lives!

Rudy had just gotten out of the Army on 7-8-75, we were still unpacking from our move from Ft. Lewis, WA back home to Cottonwood, CA.

Mona was 3 years old, Gina and Nee’ were 8 months old and I was  about between 28 – 32 weeks along in another pregnancy. (The doctors and Madigan Med Ctr, Tacoma, WA kept changing my due date , back and forth from Oct. to Sept.)

On the night of 7-18-1970, I woke up about 2 am and was hemorrhaging. Rudy rushed me to the hospital, after dropping the girls off at my parent’s house. The next morning when they did emergency caesarean, Rachelle Dawn Morris arrived, weighing 1 lb 5 1/2 ozs. They never measured her length. She was flown from Redding, CA to San Francisco, CA. She only lived 9 hours 29 minutes. I never got to see her, only Rudy and my Mom saw her before they flew her to Mt Zion Hospital.

The girls grew up knowing their baby sister had passed away right after she was born.

We have no pics of Rachelle, only a very primitive ultrasound and cannot see much of anything in it. Ultrasounds sure have improved over the years!

Rachelle, we miss you so much!

Gosh! I’ve not posted in FOREVER!

Since we got home from our vacation to NJ, we’ve been busy filling out forms, searching for Rudy’s Army buddies from Nam and getting doctor & friends to write letters for Rudy’s VA claim.

It’s brought back alot of memories from 38 years ago (Rudy and I got married a  week after he got home from doing his tour in the Army in VietNam.)

We also had our 38th anniversary on the 17th! I made Rudy an anniversary card:

Mona called and wished us a happy anniversary and told us our gift would arrive in Sept. (Rudy spotted some ferns in her yard and really liked them, so she ordered some for our present, but the company will not ship to WA until Sept.)

Gina wished us a happy anniversary from Iowa and Joe stopped by and wished us a happy anniversary too! He brought a card over that Gina had made for us: awesome job on it!

Nee’, she IM’d me early Friday morning to wish us a happy anniversary.

We had a great time in NJ with Mona, Marc, Meg, & Madi. Rudy helped Marc put their bathroom back together while we were there, most of it was completed.

We went to Jersey City to catch the ferry:

Used to be an old train station.

visited Ellis Island:

Liberty Island: Statue of Liberty

Morristown: Ford Mansion,Washington’s Headquarters:

Jockey Hollow:

Valley Forge: Meg, Rudy & Madi

Princeton (saw the bridge they show on “House”),

Atlantic City: Madi & Meg on the beach

On the Fourth of July, we had an afternoon BBQ, went to new Ice Age 3d movie, then watched fireworks from the golf course hear Mona’s house. There were so many fireworks that we could see in the sky from many locations.

Was a good trip and it’s always sad when it’s time to go home!