BECKIE'S ARRIVAL

THE MAIN EVENT

From Steve’s Journal:

29 March 1981

We are parent a fourth time!  Yesterday…Saturday, 28 March, 1981,at 1:00 p.m. Jeanne gave birth to a 22-inch , 8 lb. 5 oz. Girl.  Her name will be Rebecca Lynn, but we probably won’t bless her until late next month.

The essential details have been partly explained in previous entries.  Jeanne had  been experiencing contractions of varying duration and intensity since the beginning of March, and thought the Army had agreed to pay hospital costs (thus relieving any pressure as to when the baby would be born), Jeanne’s patience was wearing thin.

Friday we went over to the church meetinghouse to help decorate for the Gold and Green Ball.  What we expected to be a two-hour job lasted all day (10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.) and by the time we left to get dressed for the ball, we were tired.  There was only enough time to rush home, feed the girls, get dressed, and get back.  We arrived at the dance at 7:30 p.m., and the whole affair was very nice.  Jeanne had secretly (though not too secretly) hoped things might work out so she could attend and see the fruits of her labors (she had been in charge of the ball until the two weeks previous).  She was not disappointed.  We danced several dances , and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.  About 9:15 Jeanne started feeling some pretty sharp contractions, about ten minutes apart.   We left the ball at 10:45 and went to Roy Rogers for a sundae, then came home and went to bed.

Jeanne arose a couple of times, around 1:30 a.m., then again about 3:30.  She finally got up for good around 5:00 a.m., and by six we had dropped the girls at Sacketts, and were on our way by about 7:15 a.m.  We arrived at the hospital at 7:30, going directly up to the labor and delivery ward.  As soon as they knew Jeanne’s situation (breach presentation, hard contractions five minutes apart) they admitted her, no questions asked.  We were fortunate to have the obstetrician (Dr. O’Connor) on the floor, and he checked her initially.  She was dilated to 5 cm., and progressing rapidly.  Dr. O’Connor sent her down for some x-rays to determine the baby’s exact position and whether Jeanne’s pelvic cavity was large enough to deliver the baby vaginally.  Both tests turned out good, and the Doctor decided it would be worth it to wait to see if the baby would come down far enough to deliver normally, without a Caesarian section operation.  He thought the chances were excellent, but that Jeanne could look forward to 6-8 more hours of hard labor.

Jeanne proceeded to dilate much more quickly than expected, and by 9:30 she had dilated to 9 cm.  Dr. O’Connor thought the end was near, and told Jeanne a couple of hard contractions should do it.  Unfortunately she got stuck at 9 cm., and by 12:30 the doctors decided the baby wasn’t going to come.  They prepared Jeanne for a Caesarian section, and I helped roll her into the operating room.  Since I couldn’t follow her there, I proceeded to the waiting room to “wait”.  It was about 12:50 p.m.

At 1:00 p.m., a nurse came to the waiting room to inform me that I was a daddy – and that the baby had been delivered vaginally after all, with no operation.  Apparently while they were waiting for the anesthesiologist, the doctor decided to check her one more time.  She had dilated enough that he told her to give it her best shot, and a couple of hard pushes later, out popped the little squirt.  She is a beautiful little thing, looks a lot like Emmie, and I am grateful for the blessing of yet another beautiful, healthy little girl, and the wife and mother of them all.         

            

PRELUDE:

From Steve’s Journal:

15 March, 1981

Today was our last "official” Sunday at Woodbridge Ward…I had my wisdom teeth removed Tuesday, due to a scheduling foul-up Monday.  My lower molars still ache some, but I am much improved…

25 March, 1981

At this writing Jeanne is still pregnant-now some two weeks overdue.  However, our prayers were answered, but in a way we never dreamed of.

By Tuesday last week, Jeanne was fit to be tied.  The two times she had felt contractions of any strength, she’d been turned away from the hospital because she hadn’t dilated at all…and though she had been given a blessing two weeks previous that all would be well, and that the child would be born normally and would (in effect) come while still under the medical “umbrella” of the Army, she was panicky.  My release date was only two days away (Thursday, March 19^th), and we were set to load up the truck Saturday, and fly out Monday!  There seemed to be nowhere to turn…

As always, our Father had things well in hand.  On that Tuesday (March 17^th), Nancy Richardson called Jeanne.  She (Nancy) had been fuming all day that the Army couldn’t cover us after my separation, and finally called a friend who worked in Military Personnel  to see if something couldn’t be done.  The friend recollected that there was a regulation which provided for short-term extensions for “humanitarian reasons”.  Jeanne and I thought it a long shot, but we gave it a whirl.

The next morning (Wednesday) on the way up to my office I checked out a copy of the regulation, AR600-201(para 3).  I read it thoroughly, but it appeared that it applied to Regular Army types, not Active Duty Reservists like me.  I was about to give up when my boss, Colonel Boone, appeared at the door of my office and inquired as to the status of the baby.  When I told him “no progress”, he asked if I was certain there was no way I could extend.  I reported our efforts to apply the AR 600-201 clause to our situation.  He instructed me to make him a copy and sit tight, he’d see something was done.  I found out later he’d gone down to personnel and told them to “get Lt. Lambson extended…whatever needs to be done!”

Captain Biersack, the pretty staff chief in Military Personnel, spent most of the day checking out our options.  A mother herself, she was extremely empathetic.  When she called me at 3:00 p.m., however, she did ask if I got a kick out of seeing her office in a state of panic.  She instructed me to go home and prepare a form letter and attach some personal papers to it.  I would also have to get a letter from Jeanne’s doctor verifying her circumstances.  All of this, incidentally, was to be accomplished under a completely different regulation than we began with.

The next morning Jeanne and I went right to the hospital to get the letter from Dr. Beetner.  I had talked to him, and he had written it Wednesday night, and promised that the secretary would type it up the first thing Thursday morning.

We arrived at 8:00 a.m. and proceeded to wait about 1.5 hours for Jeanne to see an obstetrician (Dr. Beetner wanted a second opinion).  Meantime, I asked the receptionist if the secretary had typed the letter.  She called back to the secretary’s desk and was informed that the letter was back there, but had not been typed, and that another project had taken precedence; no, she (the secretary) did not know when it would be typed…so we sat and waited.

At 11:00, Jeanne caught Dr. Beetner and inquired about the letter.  He checked, said it had been typed, and only needed to be signed by a Colonel in charge of such things.  We went over to that office and had the letter in hand by 11:15.

We sped to the Pentagon and took the letter to Mrs. Robinson of the Military Personnel Office there.  She had us compose, type, and sign a letter there, which took about 45 minutes, and then said that was it…she’d already talked with officials in the Assistant Secretary and Secretary of the Army’s Offices, and gotten unofficial oks….but again under yet another regulation, AR 40.3.

So the final result was this:  I was still separated from the service Thursday evening (12 hours after we got the ok) and Jeanne was given special permission by letter from the Secretary of the Army, to have the baby at the Army’s expense.  So now we are enjoying the time together as we wait patiently for the little arrival…it couldn’t have worked out better.