Ezra's first plane ride

Ezra's birthday also reminds me of a story I've been meaning to put in writing since he was born. As you know, Ezra had some breathing problems and an infection so they decided to fly him from Los Alamos to Albuquerque. We decided that I would fly there with him. Since the doctor wouldn't allow Natalie to be discharged for at least 24 hours, she had to stay behind. (Natalie's parents drove through the night from Utah to pick her up and bring her down to Albuquerque the next day.) This was actually one time in my life where my girlish figure actually came in handy. The airplane carrying Ezra had so much medical equipment that their weight limit only allowed them to carry an extra person weighing less than 150 pounds.

They only gave me a few minutes to pack. Luckily I was really anal about packing our "hospital bag" like 2 months before Ezra's due date so I had some spare clothes. I also grabbed some leftover snacks as I rushed out the door.

All I really remember from the ambulance ride to the airport were the strict instructions from the nurse to stay buckled in my jump seat at the rear of the plane no matter what. If, for some reason, there was an emergency during the 30-minute ride then I should wave my arms to try to get their attention. That sounded easy enough. - I think I also may have signed my life away in case they crashed the plane.

About 15 minutes into the ride it all of a sudden dawned on me that I hadn't eaten in more than 24 hours. So I fumbled around in the dark until I found my little grocery bag of snacks. When I reached in, the only easily accessible items were some peanut M&M's floating around the bottom of the bag. They were better than nothing so I popped one in. I forgot to chew and the M&M got lodged in my throat. Now I couldn't breathe and I was stuck at the back of a small, dark, very loud airplane. The two nurses, of course, were completely focused on Ezra so no amount of flailing my arms seemed to catch their attention. I panicked. The only thing I could think to do was throw my bag of snacks at them. I'm not sure exactly how many M&M's hit them in the head, but that got their attention all right. To my surprise they just stared at me - I guess wondering how in the world I could have an emergency during a 30-minute plane ride that had the primary purpose of getting my newborn son to the hospital as quickly as possible. Fortunately after a few more seconds I managed to cough up the M&M on my own. Once we landed, one of the nurses politely reminded me that the universal sign for choking is to hold both hands to your throat. Then she smiled and said, "You're lucky you coughed up that M&M yourself since we're only NICU nurses. We don't know how to take care of big people, just little ones."

Here's a couple pictures of Ezra inside the machine he rode in on the airplane. They wheeled it into Natalie's room on their way out so she could say goodbye. Doesn't it kind of remind you of what they used to freeze Han Solo with Carbonite?