National Adult Literacy Database

November 13, 2000

This story was written by April Tran, from Edmonton, Alberta. April is a creative thinker with a wonderful sense of humour who attended the B.O.O.K.S. (Books Offer Our Kids Success) and LEARNING AND READING PARTNERS programs of Prospects Literacy Association in order to help her children with literacy skills.

The Story of Julia Tran: How I became myself

by April Tran

There I was again- another unexpected baby. Mom was very sensitive; she detected every tiny tiny change in her system. On Nov. 22, '90, Mom felt nausea and dizzy like she was having a flu. On Dec. 6, 1990, Dr. Huynh Suong confirmed the pregnancy. There I was in the womb alarming my presence with all possible symptoms.

During the Christmas holiday, Mom took Tylenol and Neocitran to settle the terrible flu. From Jan. 3 to Jan. 10, 1991, we were hospitalized to get rid of the bronchitis with benylin cough syrup and I.V. with Erythromycin antibiotic.

With me and my sister Thao, who was only ten months old at the time, and a full time job, Mom felt exhausted. She used to take a nap after dinner. Mom also took piano lessons; that explains how I got the music taste.

Somehow my body needed lots of calcium. Mom ended up eating strange fishy food that she never touched before. Overall, I was a well-behaved fetus except for the first trimester and the back labor.

On July 20, 1991, Mom was bleeding bright red but there was no sign of labor. I guessed the calcium I got from those fishy foods made the umbilical cord harder to break. One day after my parent's wedding anniversary (July 22), at 11:23 a.m. I was ready to be conveyed to the world.

I was a healthy chubby baby who felt hungry in less than every two hours although Mom kept topping up the bottle.

On Sept. 1, '91, I got an allergy from new paint which caused a heavily running nose until September 18, '91. On Oct. 4 '91, I became gaseous and there was nothing that would help. On Oct. 24, '91, after taking the Donatal, my stool became as black as charcoal. Dr. Behrmann could not tell what's wrong after all the conducted lab tests (X-ray,stool, urine and blood tests). On Nov. 23 '91 , Mom was fed up with all these. She decided to let me try baby rice cereal and it worked a wonder; everything was back to normal as it shoud be. I had trouble controlling my appetite since then; my weight was out of scale.

Mom called me "a half-price baby" since I was on homo milk at seven months old (Mar. 22, 1992), ate table food at 10 months, was off diapers at 16 months (Feb. '93), and only played and wore used toys/clothes.