Personal Histry: Birth

In 1975 the world was changing.  Politically, The Watergate scandal and the Vietnam War was wrapping up.  The United States saw its first female governor elected, Margaret Thatcher and the declaration of an International Woman’s day brought some major strides in the women’s lib movement.  Technology was literally blossoming with the release of the microcomputer called Altair 8800 and Bill Gates founding Microsoft.  The entertainment industry created Wheel of Fortune, Saturday Night Live and Walt Disney World opened Space Mountain.  In the small town of American Fork Utah, a young couple was anxiously awaiting the realization of a dream to become parents.  My parents, Chad Ephraim Penrod and Naomi Alene Fugal Penrod had been married for 3 years.  They had struggled with fertility and were seriously discussing becoming truck drivers when they discovered that they were expecting.  They both worked for the Utah State Developmental Center as well as managing the apartment complex where they lived.  In true fashion, I was two weeks late.  I was in a frank breach position; dangerous for both me and my mother.  The sky was stormy and dark at the Utah Valley Regional Medical Center in Provo Utah, and my mother was worried that I was going to die or be seriously injured in my birth.  An emergency cesarean was ordered and at 9:44 pm on July 12, I came screaming into the world.  I was 7lbs, 13oz and  really hairy from being so overdue. My healthy lung development was evident by the loud and prodigious cries that echoed down the hospital hall way.  My dad made the comment that his daughter must be an opera singer.   I had a full head of hair when I was born.  It was two toned:  blond on top and black around the bottom edges.  It is reported that my head looked like a bald man.  My mother wept when she was conscious and able to hold me for the first time.  She didn’t believe that the perfect little girl the nurses gave her was really her daughter.  My parents named me, their first born, Rebecca Marie Penrod.  There are two different stories as to where my name came from.  My dad says that my first name came from an ancestor called Hannah Rebecca and my mom says that Marie came to be because she couldn’t stand my dad’s first choice for my middle name which was Ann.    It was my grandpa Fugal that gave me the nick name Sparky due to the gleam that would cross my eyes when I was about to do something naughty. (I still get this look.)  My grandpa Penrod called me duck ass because of how I moved in my diaper.