My life almost began on June 24, 1973, but I held out about a half hour to be born in the early morning hours of June 25. It was 12:39 am. You see, I needed to set a precedent for two of four younger siblings who would also be born on the twenty-fifth of their months. I was the firstborn, arriving five years after Grandma and Grandpa had been married. I was born in Bethesda Naval Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland, a short distance from Washington D.C. This hospital has been healer to many important people, including some Presidents.
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| My hospital birth certificate |
I weighed one ounce more than nine pounds and measured 22 inches long. If I had been a boy I would have been Christopher, but my Dad liked the name Stephanie for a girl, so my name given to me at birth was Stephanie Amber Caplinger. Reviewing my medical records, I was a healthy baby, receiving an 8 out of 10 for an Apgar score. The less-than-perfect score is probably because the umbilical cord was wrapped around my neck as I was leaving my womb world, and entering this one. I was also born with a heart murmur, which I may still have until this day, and puts me in a pre-medicating category for any dental procedures. Other than that, brown-eyed, brown-haired me started nursing, bonding, and growing with few medical mishaps.
A lot has happened in the last thirty-eight years, and I look forward to sharing those memories with you, my darling boys.
