Then came you...

Last Sunday (Dec. 12th), we had the surprise arrival of our daughter, Sydney Marie. She joined our world exactly 4 weeks early. It's a pretty remarkable story and I'll let John start it out...

Since October I have been in Oklahoma for my next flying upgrade. During the training, my grandmother passed away and so I flew back to Seattle for her memorial service with only 1 flight remaining to complete the training. Grandma will definitely be missed but she passed knowing Christ, having lived a full life with family at her side. So the day after the funeral I was packed and ready to return to training... sitting in the Sea-Tac airport when Kristen called...

I (Kristen) had been a little concerned for our little one. She was usually pretty active in the womb and the past few days she had hardly made 10 movements in all. John convinced me to go to the hospital to have it all checked out instead of going church. When I got there, they hooked me up to the baby heart rate monitor and the contraction monitor. I was so relieved to hear that little heart beat. I thought, “great, I can hear her, she’s doing fine, let’s go home, maybe I’ll be able to make the 11:30 service.” Now, I had not gone into labor and was not having real contractions, just the minor Braxton Hicks contraction. The problems started when they took my blood pressure and checked my heart rate. I had high blood pressure and a low heart rate, which is not a good combination and normally not seen in 27 year women. Eventually, they decided to transfer me from the Base Hospital to the local Providence Hospital where they could monitor my heart a little more closely. At some point in all of this the doctor called John back for me...

So the flight was delayed and I(John) was sitting at the gate, 45 min from takeoff when I finally heard back. Somewhere in the conversation I heard, "... you have no business going back to Oklahoma, you need to get back up here...." This is one of those freeze frames of my life. Me, my carry-on with 2days worth of clothes and study materials, Sea-Tac airport, full run straight to Alaska Airlines ticket counter. I think I muttered "baby on the way" as I cut to the front of every line between Kristen and Me. Credit card, miles number, "Next flight..... please," an extremely long 3 hr flight. A buddy from my squadron was out side the airport car running. Straight to the hospital...

During those long hours before John made it back, I saw three different doctors, had an EKG, a heart ultra sound, and a baby ultra sound. No one could quite figure me out. With the monitors set up to watch the baby and my contractions, they were seeing a pattern where every time I had a minor contraction (just a tightening up of my stomach), the baby's heart rate would drop. She was not in distress, however, the fear was that if I had a true contraction, she quickly would be. The OB doctor laid out the options for me... We could induce, which could take a couple days before I would deliver since I was not dilated and no signs of labor were on the horizon. Or they could do a c-section, which would be the safer option for the baby. They did allow us to wait until John arrived to make the decision.

I walked in the room and everyone politely excused themselves. There she was… my beautiful wife all wired up; a dozen monitors for mom and baby. I hadn’t been home in about 2 months. Lets just say I wasn’t expecting to see her when I woke up that morning, and defiantly not like that. But it still was wonderful to give her the hospital bed hug. That hug where you can’t quite make a good connection on the back because the tilt of the bed, all the wires and that gown that swallows one and only one hand. A couple minutes later the doctor walked in and laid out the options.... C-section now or 95% chance of an Emergency C-section later.

(John) can we have an hour to talk and pray about this?

(Doc) ummmmmmmm (aka - no) ..... how about 1/2 hr?

(John) deal. see you in half an hour.

At 7:30pm on Dec. 12, 2010, they took me down to the operating room and started prepping me for surgery. John was put into scrubs and allowed in the room once I was all ready. At 8:31 Sydney Marie joined our world with eyes wide open.

To the doctors frustration Sydney seemed more interested in who everyone was and what they were doing than crying. After harassing her for a couple minutes the baby doctors stopped trying to get her to cry, weighed, measured and swaddled her up. Then they put this 5 lb peanut of all eyes in my arms and called me Dad. Mom was watching an arms length away. We stepped over and said hello to Mom. After a few kisses hello the two of us got packed up and we started for the nursery so Mom could get stitched up.

I know my SA was low as a result of working on less than 8 hrs of sleep for the previous 48 hrs but I was aware and excited when the nurse didn’t turn us into the NICU. Instead we stopped into the normal baby nursery. They took a few more measurements and made me eat some soup. Then when mom was back in our room they took us back to Kristen.

We were able to stay together as a family for the next 36 hours, but by 3:00 the next afternoon they had decided to send me (Kristen) to the Progressive Care Unit so they could monitor my heart more closely and John and Sydney were sent to the Mother- Baby unit (later dubbed the Father-Baby unit). We were separated for 24 hours, the longest 24 hours of my life. My brilliant husband had the idea to set up Skype in both our rooms so I could watch our sweet little baby from a few floors up. We were also able to convince some the nurses from the Mother-Baby unit to accompany John and Sydney up to see me so I could nurse and spend some time with them.

Finally at 3:00 the next day, they released me to go to the Mother-Baby unit. We spent a few more days there recovering and making sure Sydney was okay to go home. On Dec. 16^th they released us both, and John and I took our new addition home.

Please continue to keep us in your prayers, as there are still some issues going on with my heart. We praise God the improvement I’ve made already and are continuing to pray for a speedy recovery.