Baseball and Baby

Thursday was actually a pretty good day at school. My kids were fairly calm all day and we ended with a fun game of baseball in the gym. I pitched. One kid fussed about everything, but a classmate (one of his friends) told him to knock it off because it was slowing down the game. So eventually he quit. 

G and I were going to go to St. Mark for church, but our plans got derailed... He's fighting off a bad cold, so he dropped food off for others to serve (he was one of the council members in charge of the dinner this Wednesday) and went home to rest. I got a call from my friend K, a college friend with a baby due mid-May. She was in the hospital fully dilated, baby was coming breech, husband was piloting somewhere, and she was going in for emergency c-section. Could I come to the hospital? 

So I dropped everything and zoomed to Mankato. The Mankato hospital is a maze, but I found my way up to her room and suited up in a blue hairnet and disposable scrubs. The nurses were prepping her for surgery and took her to the operating room shortly after I arrived. Before she left, she asked me to be godmother. Of course! I was put in charge of updating husband and family until her anesthesia finalized and then I could go in the room. 

Mostly, I stayed behind the curtain at K's head and talked to her/held her arm/prayed. Every once in a while I'd pop up to see beyond the curtain how things were going. In a few short minutes, baby Ella was born! Nurses whisked her off for check-up since she's two months premature. K got sewn back up no problems, and baby is doing fine too. The main problem at two months early is there's no surfactant being produced in the lungs. Surfactant is what lets the surfaces slip and slide past each other without sticking. So baby can breath, it's just really difficult until she can produce surfactant on her own. They hooked her up to a breathing tube right away and said she was doing really well with oxygen levels. 

Mankato isn't staffed for an intensive NICU; they only keep babies over 34 weeks. Anything under gets sent to Rochester. So little Ella got prepped for transport that night. K decided to baptize in the hospital before she left. No pastor's answered her call, so I was on deck for doing the baptism. Thankfully, the pastor who married her texted that he had literally just arrived in Mankato (back from CA) and could be over in 10 minutes. Right after that we got word the baby was coming down to K's room to say goodbye before leaving. We asked if they could stall ten minutes. The staff was hesitant, but they had to go over paperwork, which wrapped up right as the pastor came to the door. Whew! God's timing is perfect! 

He did the baptism, said a prayer, and did a devotion for us after baby left. (K's sister-in-law had also come down from the Cities to be with us). G came back to town to clean up the lenten meal and brought me some supper. I ended up leaving the hospital around 8pm after visiting hours ended. K was doing well, her husband would arrive sometime around 11pm. 

What a day!