It was a busy day, like any other. I taught school, was going to my weekly doctor's appointment with Dr. Howell, grabbing something quick for dinner, and then running back to school for "Open House". Cyrus met me at school about 2:30, we left my car at CGE and headed to the doctor. Since I had gestational diabetes, I had been seeing the doctor weekly since 23 weeks, so by 37 weeks this had become very routine! We get to the doctor's office to find out there was quite a wait...of course, the one time I actually had somewhere to be afterwords there would be a wait! Once we finally got to see Dr. Howell, he told me he was concerned about my blood pressure. It was really high...and had never been high before! He wanted me to lay there in his office for about an hour to see if my blood pressure would go down. After about an hour and a half of being still on my left side and constant checking of my BP, Dr. Howell informed me that not only was I not going to Open House or going back to work for the rest of my pregnancy, but he wanted to admit me to the hospital for observation. He assured me that he would just monitor me for a few hours and I would probably get to go home before bedtime, but he was "on call" and wanted to be able to check on me himself! So, I was admitted to the hospital and hooked up to the monitors and we were waiting patiently for my BP to go down so that we could go home. My mom made it to the hospital to wait with us. Dr. Howell came in around 10:00 pm and said that my BP had still not gone down, so he wanted to continue to monitor me through the night and tomorrow we would talk about induction if nothing had changed. How could I be induced tomorrow???...3 weeks early?? No, I wasn't ready! The nursery wasn't completely finished, we didn't have everything we needed at the house, my sub plans weren't completed, and my car was still parked at Caddo Grove! Shortly after midnight, the doors burst open. A team of nurses came running in, flipped me on my side and put an oxygen mask over my nose. Before I could even ask what in the world was wrong...Dr. Howell came in threw Cyrus a pair of scrubs and said "How do you feel about a Friday the 13th baby... I am taking this baby NOW"!! The baby's heart rate had dropped, that was the reason behind the panic. Cyrus started putting on his scrubs while watching his Orangemen in overtime, and I was swept away to prep for an emergency c-section! There were 7 attempts at a spinal before one actually took, which is when I think the panic started to sink in. Cyrus met me in the operating room and with the help of a small team of 15, Beckham Burton Richie was brought into the world at 12:37 am on Friday, March 13th! He weighed in at 5 pounds 10 ounces and stretched out to be 19 inches long. I was worried because I couldn't hear him cry - - but all assured me he was screaming! After a quick glance at him and we snapped a few pictures, Beckham was rushed to the NICU. As a result of my gestational diabetes, his pancreas produced too much insulin and Beckham's bloodsugar dropped into the 20's. So he was rushed off to the NICU to help him maintain his sugar levels until he was able to do so on his own. So, Friday, March 13th 2009 was the perfect day...our baby boy couldn't wait to meet us and Syracuse won after six overtimes...All was right with the world!!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SWEET BECKHAM !


Meeting mommy & daddy for the first time
