Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death ...

Alex was our last child to be born in Canada. Being our fifth child you would think we'd know what was going on. Actually, every one thought this was going to be a breeze but as always, Alex knows how to mix things up. The first problem was that Lisa went into labor while her doctor Dr. Oberg was out of town. The back up doctor was a friend of ours Doctor Jack Regehr. Doctor Oberg was a good friend of ours as well by this time. I actually went deer hunting with Doctor Oberg once. When we came into the hospital the nurses took one look at Lisa and said, "This should be an easy night, Lisa is an expert at this." They were quite happy because the two nurses hadn't worked together for a while and were looking forward to an easy night where they could visit and catch up on things. Little did they know what they were in for. It was late evening when we went into the hospital and as soon as Lisa's contractions get serious we could tell that things weren't quite right. We didn't know what was wrong but Lisa assured me that her contractions were "different". Of course the nurses didn't know what to think of that and they weren't about to call the doctor because things were, "different". To complicate things even more, all of the doctors were at a going away party for one of their co-workers who was moving or retiring or something. Since Alex was my fifth child I was now very familiar with the equipment they use. They would strap this sensor around Lisa's belly and a machine about the size of a suitcase would monitor her contractions. It displayed a graph and every time a contraction would come the line would form a peak, the higher the peak the stronger the contractions. As the night progressed Lisa's contractions got stronger and stronger and more and more frequent. This was exactly what one would expect but around midnight something very strange started to happen. The contractions kept getting stronger but they became less frequent. That is when I started to worry, I could tell that the nurses were starting to worry as well but they tried to stay positive. They weren't fooling anyone. This is also about the time Lisa started to go delirious. So told me later that she was sure she was going to die. I never thought she would die but I was very concerned about her well being and I was a bit fearful for the baby. They had a device hooked up the Alex's head that measured his heart rate and every time Lisa had one of those monster contractions his heart rate would start to slow down. As the contractions continued to get further and further apart they did finally decide to call the doctor. This was now about five in the morning and of course at that hour it took the doctor the better part of an hour to get to the hospital. I don't think they communicated the seriousness of the situation to him and I'm not even sure they recognized the danger either. I was starting to get real worried because at this the point the contractions were very strong but only about ten minutes apart. As soon as Doctor Regehr walked into the delivery room things happened very fast. He looked at me and saw that I was glued to the machine anticipating every contraction and he told the nurse to disconnect the machine and get it out of there. He then checked out Lisa and asked why they didn't call him sooner. He then told the nurses that they had to get that baby out of there. He was already in the birth canal so I guess that meant a cesarean section was no longer an option so they started pushing on Lisa's belly. I really felt sorry for her because they would wait for a contraction and then push very hard on her belly. It was agonizing for her. At this point she was so delirious that she didn't know what was going on but when they rammed on her belly that brought her around. Finally they maneuvered Alex to the point that the doctor could pull him through. What a relief that was. It was such a joy to see this boy enter into the world. Any concerns I might have had about his health were quickly alleviated when I saw Alex's little hand grab onto the sheet that was covering Lisa. Alex was still mostly inside his mother when he grabbed onto the sheet and held so tightly that the doctor had to peel his little fingers open so he could finish delivering him. It was very funny. I'm sure most of you are familiar with the Apgar score. That is a very quick test that the doctors do one minute after birth and then again five minutes after to quickly establish the health of the baby. The baby gets a zero, one or two in each of five categories. For a perfectly healthy baby that adds up to a ten. The five categories are: heart rate; breathing; grimace (reflex's); activity and appearance. It is almost unheard of for a baby to get a ten on the one minute test. Alex got an 8 at one minute and a ten at five minutes. I think with him grabbing the sheets he scored full marks for activity, appearance and grimace.

After the birth of Alex, Lisa's recovery was almost immediate. Within minutes she was loving her baby boy. No one really said anything about the scary few hours before Alex's birth but within a few short weeks it all became clear to us. Kira and Brandon were at school and Lisa was sitting on the couch nursing Alex while Ben and Alycia were watching Sesame Street. She suddenly felt impressed to put Alex in his crib. She thought that was a strange impression and ignored it. She felt the impression again and again she ignored it. Finally after three times she went and put Alex in his crib and no sooner had she done so when she had a stabbing pain in her side and collapsed onto the floor. The pain was so debilitating that she couldn't even crawl. She managed to get to the phone but there was work going on in town and the lines were dead so she called Ben (who was only four) to run to the neighbors across the street and tell her that Lisa was in trouble and needed her help. The neighbor across the street said her baby was asleep and she couldn't come. She then sent him to the next door neighbors but they weren't home. After a second try the first neighbor finally came over and was able to get a hold of Lynette Huber who came and stayed with Lisa until she eventually worked her way through the pain. I came home and we got her in to see the doctor. The final analysis is that Lisa had a large cyst on her uterus that had burst. The cyst is what was causing the problems during her delivery. The way I under stand it is that the uterus is essentially one massive muscle and during labor the muscle contracts from one end to other pushing the baby out. What was happening to Lisa is that as this contraction progressed down her uterus it would hit the cyst causing a stabbing pain that made the muscle flinch and thereby messing up the push. These messed up contractions were ineffective at moving the baby through the birth canal so all they were doing were wearing out Lisa and tiring out the muscle. By the time Dr Regehr got to the hospital Lisa's body was shutting down. After Alex was born we decided that perhaps we were pushing our luck and we would only have five kids.

------------------------------------------Sixth Grade Olympics
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Alex riding a horse and LeRon and Patsey Litchfields farm in Taber
------------------------------Hawaii
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Grandma's House - Cochrane, Alberta