“I was supposed to be at the hospital early in the morning, before the first plane hit, but my doctor’s office called and asked me to arrive a little later,” she said. “I actually watched the second plane hit with Bryant Gumble yelling, ‘It was intentional!’ ”
While her C-section went smoothly and Orlett was able to put the “surreal” events taking place in New York City out of her mind, it began hitting home while she was recovering that evening.
“It’s not easy having all of one’s hormones raging while watching nonstop news stories about the horrors of the day,” she said. “I couldn’t help wondering if more terrorist attacks would occur and think about how I would be feeling if one of my loved ones would have been lost.”
Orlett’s birth experience became more surreal after she went home and logged onto a chat group she had joined at the website pregnancyweekly.com. She had been chatting with other mothers expecting babies that month.
“Some moms were downright rude when I told them my son was born on 9/11,” she said, “making comments like, ‘Oh, so you think your baby is better than mine because he was born that day?’ ”
Orlett wasn’t the only one who became the brunt of such insensitive comments, and she soon receive a private email from Monique Connelly, who lived in Staten Island. Her daughter, Brianna, was born at 4 a.m. on Sept. 11.
“It was like we had to defend our child and ourselves for the day our kids were born,” Connelly said in an email. “I was like, ‘My child is special because she is mine and not because of the day she was born.’ ”
Connelly invited Orlett to join another chat group of mothers who were enduring the same nastiness. September 11th Babies on Yahoo! Groups was started by Missie Miller, who was living in San Jose, Calif., and now resides in Chesterfield, Ohio.
“I had stopped telling people the date (my daughter Melody) was born when they asked,” Miller said. “People would say things to me such as, ‘How can you be happy to give birth on such a horrible day,’ or ‘I feel sorry for you for having your baby on that day.’ ”
With that in common, women across the country were invited into the group, and it became a support group. Members have come and gone, but a core group of 11 have stuck together.
They not only talk on-line, but send gifts for birthdays, Christmas and Mother’s Day. They talk regularly on the phone, hand down clothes and even get together in person.
“I’ve met Sandy several times — she’s been forced to sit through at least one bad local skating competition,” Connelly said. “We had a triple birthday party in Ohio with Sandy and Trevor, Missie and Melody and their families.”
“We all decided a few years ago that since we are such a close group, that we would not add any more new members,” Miller said. “It started feeling like we were letting strangers into our home because it was no longer just a group of moms who gave birth on the same day, it was a group of friends sharing all the ups and downs of our personal lives.”
And they learned there are challenges to having a 9/11 baby other than snide comments from jealous mothers.
When Trevor Orlett was a toddler, he found the basement phone around the same time his parents were teaching him his birthday.
“He discovered very quickly that while it was good to know his birthday, dialing 9-1-1 on the telephone was an absolute no-no unless there’s an emergency,” his mother said.
Contact this reporter at (513) 820-2188 or rjones@coxohio.com.
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