Sunday, January 17, 2010

One Minute Love - Camden Reinhardt Becker

Heather had her baby!

Camden Reinhardt Becker was born at 8:47am on January 15, 2010. He weighed 7 pds, 13 ounces, and was 20 1/2 inches long. He is the most adorable new born I have ever seen. Most newborns look like squishy aliens, but Camden is gorgeous. His face is the cutest. Instant love.

Heather's original due date was set for January 20, 2010. During a routine check-up about 3 months ago, the doctor pushed her due date up to January 14, 2010, almost a week ahead. I knew Phil (Engel) was going to be in Iraq by the time the baby would be due, so I immediately took off the 14th, 15th, 16th of January to be on call so I could head down to South Florida and be there, in case Heather would give birth on either of those dates.

Thursday afternoon (14th), I decided to ride my bike for the 1st time to school, which is about 3 miles away from my house. I got to school around 2 and proceeded to hang out with some fellow students who are in my program. I knew Heather had a doctor's appointment that day to see how dialated she was, so we could estimate when she would actually go into labor.

I was sitting our department's lounge, and I received a text message from Heather. She informed me that the appointment is going well, and that I shouldn't worry about heading down to South Florida any time soon because she had only dialated half a centimeter, and figured it wouldn't be another week until she gave birth. So I continued to socialize with my classmates.

No less than 5 minutes later, I receive a phone call from Heather, telling me that the doctor didn't like the breathing rate of the baby, and was planning to induce labor 8pm that night. I was in complete disbelief.

After rushing down from Orlando, I met up Heather, Heather's mom, Melanie, Heather's Dad, Jan, and Heather's sister, Missy, who were all at the hospital, who had just began having her labor induced. Even after multiple steps were taken to induce Heather's labor, nothing was allowing her to dialate. Although she was having constant contractions, she still had only dialated to 2 centimeters by early morning. At around 3am, nurses at the hospital kicked me, Missy, and her dad out, explaining to us that at her rate, Heather wouldn't be giving birth until late afternoon, so we should go home and get some rest. We left the hopital, and slept at Heather's parents' house.

Lo and behold, at 7:30 am, we receive a call from Heather's aunt, Chita, who told us that the baby had turned sideways in Heather's belly, and that they were going to attempt an emergency C-section now. Immediately startled at the news, Chita comes over to pick Missy and I up so we could hurry to the hospital. Right as we got there, they were wheeling Camden into the nursery.

By 8:48am, we all fell in love.

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