Benjamin Ernst Bacon - Heather Super Heroine

Ladies and Gentlemen, we are pleased to introduce Mr. Benjamin Ernst Bacon. Benjamin arrived to the world at 11:51 pm on June 12th, weighing a stout 8 lbs, 9 oz, measuring 22 inches long

While Benjamin is the star, Heather is my ever angel and she is the rock of our family and a true super heroine. Despite being fully dilated, 2 1/2 hours of pushing yieled little progress and so we elected to have a c-section, which was otherwise a success in terms of the delivery, if it wasn't for the massive hemmoraging of her uterus. This was a medical emergency, what they call a 'code white' at Rose, where all emergency staff and resources are made immediately to the code's disposal. I hadn't realized this was even happening, as standard post c-section practice is for the father to take the baby away to the nursery while they stitch up the mother. I was tickling his toes, swaddling his body, and taking photos. Back with Heather, the doctors were fighting severe blood loss (she lost over 3 liters, or 60% of the blood in her body), and were trying desperately to save her uterus - which of course without, we could not have any other children. You can imagine how shocked I was when I was informed of the situation about an hour and a half after the delivery (at that point I knew something was wrong), and they came to get me not so much b/c I had to make a choice, but b/c it was a critical time where they could inform me of the status of the situation where they were waiting to see if a special balloon inserted into her uterus would contain the blood loss enough to save the uterus itself. They hoped this would work, or else they'd need to do a hysterectamy. They were monitoring this, all while controlling Heather's overall blood loss, which was complicated by the intense labor efforts from before, the large doses of Ptocin, and a common infection that is inside the uterus itself.

This was a terribly frightening experience, and while in a stable condition now, I would like you all to continue to think of, pray for, and salute Heather's enormous courage. She is recovering now and is considered stable. We are under special care, and please know that we will have to dilligently consider any visitor time, so please, please be patient and understanding and supportive of us. The implications of this experience were very uncertain. It is hard to write about it, but we decided you should know, and I can't sleep anyway, and fortunately, she is resting again.

We have the best friends and family in the world, and we can't wait to share our beautiful boy with you all! This was true 'labor'... as any labor story is I suppose, and the short of it is that we are going to be a happy family together - we just had to take a really rough road to get there.