I sent out a separate update to inform my college classes of my situation (I got Julie’s length wrong on the original email):
Hello GTAs,
I wanted to pass along the good news – my wife gave birth to a girl, Julie Kristina, yesterday March 7 at 12:04 pm. Julie is 6 lbs 1 oz and [16] inches long.
My wife, Sarah, gave birth after only 10 minutes in the delivery room. Coincidentally, there were sporadic reports of a black streak moving south on US 75 just before noon. Sarah is doing very well and expected to come home Thursday.
Julie has several challenges ahead. She was born 9 weeks premature. She has a CCAM (cyst where part of the right lung should be) and fetalis hydrops (multiple patches of fluid in her body). As much as 2 lbs of her weight is fluid which is probably restricting her ability to breathe and pump blood. Her lung capacity is also reduced because of the CCAM. She is in the Neonatal ICU at Medical City – Dallas.
We only discovered the problems three weeks ago from an unscheduled ultrasound exam. Ever since then we’ve been running at full speed to get to the appointments, do the research and take care of Sarah and Julie. Each day had its challenges. We felt like we were floating in the ocean when something would pull us under, but God would bring us back to the surface – we just had to hold our breath and wait.
Please pray that Julie will overcome these problems, that Sarah will recover, and that I can continue my studies at DTS while dealing with this new situation and full time at work.
Thanks,
Andy Horn
PS Feel free to pass this email to others.
I hadn’t had time to inform anyone at school about my situation. After all, my classes were all online so I had managed to barely keep up. Now, I had fallen behind (specifically the hundreds of pages of reading assignments) and wanted everyone to know our situation. Several papers were coming due soon. I began to wonder if I should drop out of the 15 hours and six classes I started in January.
On this trip home, I collected my books, organized my assignments, and attempted to get caught up on videos while the washing machine ran. I also logged into work to check my email and verify my servers were running correctly.
Unfortunately, I didn’t have a reliable laptop that I could use at the hospital, so I couldn’t do much in Sarah’s room but read. The foldout couch didn’t sleep very well and I had to arrange my own food. All these things made the trips home more welcome.
Still, I kept my sense of humor about our situation. Julie improved with each visit. We were getting used to the rhythm of the NICU.