Meet Ashlyn!

Last Thursday was one of the greatest days of my life!  My beautiful baby girl, Ashlyn Hope, was born weighing in at a whopping 7 pounds 13 ounces.

It was supposed to be a breeze.  She was a scheduled C-Section.  We’ve had the date and time planned for months and pre-orchestrated all the moving parts of who was going to watch our son, how long we’d be in the hospital, and even the things we’d need to take to the hospital.  After being parents to our 4 year old son, we’re old pros at this mom and dad thing.  We knew exactly what to expect with a C-Section delivery and how to work the sleep schedule to our benefit to lessen our exhaustion.  We even spoke with the hospital beforehand to find out what our bill would be and have planned our savings over the past 9 months to make sure we could cover the bill in full.

At 1:12pm on June 7 my little princess was born.  At 1:16pm her heart rate dropped to 40 bpm and she stopped breathing.  Suddenly the 2 nurses that were working with my daughter became a sea of doctors and nurses.  As I looked out the window I saw even more doctors and specialists scrubbing up to come into the O.R.  Sara’s doctor who has always had a calm demeanor and throughout the whole surgery was talking suddenly became silent and was watching intently at the developing situation.

For the first time in this entire process, I was unprepared, unplanned and terrified.  I looked down at my wife and could see panic written all over her face.  I tried to be strong for her, but looking over at my daughter lying lifeless and blue on a table while doctors poke and prod her was too much.  I was out of control of the situation and the only thing I could do was pray.  I prayed harder than I’ve ever prayed.

4 and ½ minutes later it was over.  The doctors had Ashlyn breathing and she was starting to turn pink again.  Sara was almost done with surgery and they handed my baby girl to me to hold for the first time.  We’re home now and doing great! I’m very thankful to all the doctors and nurses that took fantastic care of all of us while we were at the hospital.

In all of the unexpected I was very thankful for the planning that we had done.  It was a very different experience than when my son was born.  When we were at the hospital for his birth, I checked everything the doctors did.  I questioned medications given and the cost of everything.  Not because I didn’t trust the doctors, but because we were broke and hadn’t planned ahead for the expense.  By planning ahead, controlling stupid tendencies, and saving cash, the last thing I had to worry about was, “how am I going to pay for all of this?” and my first thoughts got to be on my wife, my daughter, and asking my God to protect us all.