There are many miracles that some would call ‘coincidence’ that led to our meeting Jordan this side of Heaven.

We were scheduled to meet with a reporter from the Redding Record-Searchlight on Wednesday March 9th to talk about Trisomy 18 and our experience with Jordan.

In order to prepare for our interview we scheduled a phone conversation with Victoria Miller, Founder and Director of Trisomy18support.org. During our conversation, she alerted us to some warning signs about fetal distress during the later stages of pregnancy.

She also provided us with some information about c-sections for Trisomy 18 babies. It was her opinion that babies who were delivered by c-section generally had a better change of surviving birth.

(Thanks to Victoria, this information would be used just a few hours later to give Jordan a chance to live.)

We had our interview with Damon Arthur from the Record Searchlight. After hearing our story, he informed us that he would like to do an extended feature about Jordan and our family. His intent was to follow us to doctor’s visits over the next two months as our due date grew closer. We were flattered but a little scared at the fact that reporters would imbedded with us during the rest of our journey.

Later that evening, Jen noticed that Jordan wasn’t kicking or moving. We decided to try some of the techniques we knew about to get him active.

Hoping the sugar would wake Jordan up, Jen had a bowl of ice cream and some fruit punch. She also tried to position herself in a number of positions to see if the baby would react.

A little nervous about the lack of movement, we decided to go to the Maternity Center at Mercy Medical for a non-stress test. We weren’t too nervous, however, as we had just been through the same process a week earlier.

After a few hours on the fetal monitor, it became obvious that Jordan was not thriving inside and needed some help. His heart rate decreased several times during the early morning hours. He lacked what the doctors called variability, meaning slight changes in his heart rate.

About 3:00 am, our nurse told us that Jen would probably not be leaving the hospital that night. We were advised to call our family members who lived out of town to start heading to Redding.

Around 5:00 am, our doctor arrived. He told us that an otherwise healthy baby would have already been take by c-section. They were holding back on that decision because they weren’t sure the role Trisomy 18 played in his condition. They were also concerned that a c-section might make things worse.

After hearing Victoria’s advice earlier that day, we elected to have an emergency c-section as soon as the operating room could be scheduled.

The surgery was scheduled for 6:00 am. We had a small delay, however, as a fire drill was scheduled for the exact same time. It seemed strange to watch our doctors rushing around getting ready for the surgery while all the other hospital staff waited in the designated areas for the drill to be over.

Jordan was born at 6:53 am.

His dad was watching on while our close friend Deeda LeCoe took pictures of the new arrival. Out in the waiting room, his brothers and many other loved ones were waiting to meet him

During our prenatal care, we had met with many doctors, nurses, and a neonatologist to make arrangements for our son. By a miracle of God, all of those doctors were on call that morning.

One of the doctors, Dr. Perry, had stopped delivering babies many years before. In fact, during our search for an OB, we had many people tell us that it was unfortunate that Dr. Perry was no longer delivering babies, because he was wonderful.

We learned that Dr. Perry had been praying for us and would be in the operating room assisting Dr. Williams with the c-section.

Prior to the surgery, our medical team prayed with us. During the surgery, the room was full of Christians who were praying for us. It seems that at every turn, there were people praying for our son as he entered the world and during all the hours of his precious life.

Every staff person who came into contact with us or with our son from Mercy Medical Center was amazingly wonderful. We cannot say how much it meant to us that they were so caring and loving and kind. Every moment felt like a gift from God. Thank you to the hospital staff – God’s ambassadors to Jordan and to our family.

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