Hey everyone. We sure do appreciate all the prayers that many have been lifting up and for the many congratulations sent out to us. This is my first venture into the blogosphere...I thought I would fill in for Jenny here and let her rest in the room. :)
Wow, this is definitely a story to remember! I am still amazed at what all happened. I can't say that I had even the slightest thought that we were going to have a baby at our house...or in the car in the garage. But it became apparent very quickly that there was indeed no way we were going to get down the road, let alone to the hospital. The baby decided to come extremely fast (45 minutes of total labor and only 20 minutes after I arrived home from church), which was way different from the delivery with Isaac (he wasn't in a hurry at all!)
After running over to our neighbor’s to drop off Isaac so we could head to the hospital...I came back in the house and was determined to get Jenny to the hospital. I could tell this was getting urgent, but I was a determined man...my wife was getting to the hospital. Well the best I could do was get her into the front seat of our car! I didn't even get out of the driveway.
After quickly realizing this delivery was very much going to happen in our garage I called our doctor, who then had me call 911. Let me just say these 911 people are amazing and I am so thankful I had that help. Somehow in this whole mix, I guess I hung up on our doctor, though...I found that out afterward. Oops. :) I guess I was just juggling between too many phones and decisions crashing in front of me.
The 911 lady reassured me that help was on the way. She started to share what I needed to do...and I was like, hey this is not something I want to do on my own. (it was like an internal HELP!!!) My mind flashed of people I could call for help...Kathy Rowe came to mind as she is a nurse. So with 911 on one of our cell phones, I called Kathy on the other cell phone. When she answered, I quickly asked her if she was at home...which she wasn't. It was a flurry in my head...right at that point I saw an unmarked police car drive slowly past our house. I ran out to flag him down and saw one of our neighbors and had her run down the police car. It's amazing how quick he had gotten there, literally a minute or two after the 911 call. Wow, am I thankful for that!!! Come to find out, he wasn’t actually responding to the call. God definitely sent us an angel! From the time I called 911 to the time of delivery, it was only 8 minutes!!
An image that will be burned in my mind forever, is seeing this officer walk up our driveway strapping on his surgical gloves and having that look of extreme confidence (even though we found out later that he had actually never delivered a baby before). That was sure a help to me! I was just pouring sweat at that point.
So, with 911 still on the phone I was talking with them and relaying all the information they said to the police officer, who basically became our delivery doctor! I was also telling Jenny anything the 911 lady instructed me to tell her. I'll save some of the details for personal conversations, but
I'll just say that Jenny was amazing through all of this...she is definitely my hero! :) And the police officer was a gift from God to us.
Just as baby Levi was almost delivered, Cheryl Young arrived (she was coming to watch Isaac...she got more than she bargained, as she got to be a part of the final stages of the delivery!). She went to the other side of the car and helped Jenny along with the police officer.
As soon as the baby was born I could hear the sirens from the ambulances. God blessed us once again with incredible timing. The paramedics came up and took charge of the scene, cleaning the baby and suctioning his nose and mouth and doing all the things that need to happen right after delivery. They were also very helpful and gentle with Jenny.
One of our neighbor ladies was handed the baby and took him down to the ambulance with some of the paramedics. The other paramedics helped Jenny out of the car and onto a stretcher and then to the ambulance.
At this point, I was pouring sweat! It was like we were in a movie or something...and it just all seemed so surreal. But, yes, it was really happening.
The ambulance took us to Condell Hospital, as that is closest to our house. We normally would have gone to Lake Forest Hospital. Bottomline, we are grateful for God's hand throughout all this. There are many complications that can happen in childbirth...with the delivery the way it went - ie in our garage!!! - we praise HIM that everything went well....and that Jenny and baby Levi are safe and healthy.
I should mention too...do you remember that I had called Kathy Rowe on the phone??? Well, I had just set down the phone, so she had the opportunity to hear the whole delivery on the phone!!! If you want another perspective of this story, you'll have to ask her! Amazing!!!
Thank you all for your prayers, your love, and your encouragment to us as a family. we love you tons!!!
And we're proud to introduce Levi Paul Hays. 8lbs 1 oz - 19.5 inches. Born October 3, 2008 at 1:27pm. And, yes, in our garage!
Rejoicing in the LORD!
Dan and Jenny
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