The Back Story

Here is a first updated email I sent to friends and colleagues at Seminary prior to having pictures. There are more details of the delivery...

----- Monday, February 29, 2006 -----

I’m home for the night and returning a few emails. Thank you so much for your prayers and support.

Jill is at the hospital resting for a few more days after the rush c-section delivery. So far so good for her – everything happened so fast so it will probably take a bit for everything to settle in.

Magnus (Gus) George Brekke is doing great, as well as we can hope for! Born 2/26/06 at 8:18pm he weighed in at 1 lb 12.25 oz and was 13.5 inches long. He had good color, was squirmy and taking breaths right as he came out. Gus is now hooked to a lot of machinery that is helping him so he works as little as possible in order to save energy for growing and staying strong. The technology of modern medicine and the love that goes into creating it and administering the care is truly a miracle! Things can change quickly with premature babies – we know that little miracles are happening every minute.

Another miracle is my journey home from Arizona/Mexico. John Virgin and I had returned to Tucson for a few days after our BorderLinks trip to learn about and help local humanitarian aid groups. We were on a water replenishment run on Saturday morning with the Humane Borders group when I got the call that Jill was going to Kettering Hospital with some discomfort. We finished our replenishment and headed back to Tucson in time to hear that the doctors felt she was having early labor. I called Tammy Jo Reiser and she hunted down a return trip for me that left out of Phoenix. I packed up all my stuff and John and I drove up to Phoenix where I caught the plane to Columbus a few hours later. My pastor’s husband drove to Columbus to pick me up and take me to Miami Valley Hospital in Dayton where Jill had been transferred while I was on the plane. We arrived at 1:45am and found Jill had been put on some very strong anti-contraction drugs. Things ebbed and flowed through the night and subsided a bit during the day but at 6:00pm on Sunday evening Jill started to contract strongly and after an examination at 7:30pm it was decided that the contractions were increasing and Gus was on his way out. He was sideways so they rushed Jill off to prepare for a c-section which went very smoothly.

I am very appreciative of the prayers, emails and calls from the UTS community. Tammy Jo and her family have been saints – standing beside Jill and me through this difficult pregnancy. She and her husband Dan were even at MVH when we delivered last night. They had brought an enormous care package to hold us through what was supposed to be a long pre-birth hospitalization – not knowing Jill would deliver last night. Also, Dr. Edwards called just to see how we were doing – she was a little surprised to find that I was changing out of my scrubs after attending the c-section! Not many seminary students can say their Dean of Students was the first person to know of their new baby’s arrival…

Continued prayers are appreciated for our family as Gus will likely be in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at MVH for at least 10 weeks. He needs to do all the things he was supposed to do inside his mom on the outside now. I’m taking my digital camera in tomorrow and will try to get some pictures out to you ASAP.

Many Blessings!
Gregg