Step inside Kaye and Andy Hall’s Everett home, you can’t miss the evidence of children.
A wooden dollhouse occupies floor space in the living room. On a coffee table are pouches packed with Polly Pocket dolls. Family photographs show a handsome clan, four daughters and their parents.
From another part of the house comes the cheerful sound of little girls at play. Twins Anna and Kari Hall are 3. Their 5-year-old sister, Elise, was at preschool Tuesday morning. The girls also have a 23-year-old sister, Kjersti.
Now active and full of the monkey business befitting their age, the twins began life too soon. Arriving two months prematurely, they weighed only 3 and 4 pounds when they were born at Seattle’s Swedish Medical Center March 12, 2004.
In the neonatal intensive care unit, they dropped to 2 and 3 pounds before the began to gain weight.
Their parents expected the twins would stay in the hospital for up to two months. Instead, the preemies were sent home within about two weeks. The Halls were among the lucky ones.
“Some people are there months and months. They’ve made such strides with prematurity, even in the past 10 years,” Kaye Hall said. Kari still has asthma related to her premature birth, and Anna suffered from severe acid reflux. “With the issues some folks face, we were so fortunate,” the mother said.
Feeling blessed, Andy Hall is serving for the second year as chairman of the Snohomish County WalkAmerica. A fundraiser for the March of Dimes, the walk begins at 9 a.m. Saturday at Everett’s Legion Memorial Park.
The event is expected to draw more than 1,000 people, with proceeds going toward research into premature births, programs to help families with babies in neonatal intensive care and prematurity prevention programs.
Andy Hall’s architectural firm, Botesch, Nash &Hall Architects, is among the walk’s local sponsors, along with Providence Everett Medical Center and several others. Saturday’s Everett walk is one of eight WalkAmerica events statewide; the largest will be May 5 at Qwest Field in Seattle.
“We will all walk together,” said Kaye Hall, who taught middle school before staying home to raise her young daughters.
To her, it doesn’t seem long ago when she was confined to bed rest during her last two months of pregnancy. Doctors determined before birth that the girls were discordant twins, meaning one was considerably larger than the other. The stress was on Kari, the larger baby, who is still taller and about 5 pounds heavier than Anna.
Once home, the struggles continued as the girls had to be fed every two hours. “Andy would feed one, I’d feed the other, and Anna had to be held straight up for an hour afterwards,” Hall said. “We’d barely get an hour of sleep.”
The Halls were helped by north Everett friends, who pitched in with cooking and helping care for Elise, who was 2 at the time. “This neighborhood was wonderful,” Hall said.
With their oldest child, Kjersti, a graduate of the University of Washington, the Halls are relishing a second chapter of parenthood. Now 52, Kaye Hall was 48 when the twins were born.
“I get a kick out of it,” she said. “These two – one of them is really a challenge.”
My third child came along when I was 45. Challenge? I know what she means, but I’m getting a kick out of it, too.
The Halls are lucky in multiples. Helping the March of Dimes is a way to show gratitude for all the support they’ve had.
“We just felt very comforted by the advances in caring for premature infants,” Kaye Hall said. “We want that to continue.”
Columnist Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460 or muhlsteinjulie@heraldnet.com.
The Snohomish County WalkAmerica, a fundraiser for the March of Dimes, will be Saturday at Legion Memorial Park in Everett. Registration starts at 7:30 a.m. Go to www.walkamerica.org for information.
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