The Last Month

Only a week after transferring care to Dr. Byrne, she called us on the evening of August 7 to let us know that, unless he decided to be born sooner, they would be inducing Bekah on September 4. His original due date was September 13.

They chose to induce early in order to ensure that Nathan would be born at the University of Utah Hospital, where they would be prepared with all of the necessary equipment that he would need to save his life once he was born.

Also, we were also told in no uncertain terms that if Bekah happened to go into labor before that time, we were to go to the nearest hospital and inform them we were an extremely high risk pregnancy, that our baby could only be born at University Hospital, and that we needed immediate transport there.

Talk about another wake up call! Nathan had to be born at University Hospital. There was no other option.

Thankfully, the last month was entirely uneventful. Bekah made weekly trips to Salt Lake to meet with Dr. Byrne to monitor her health and to check Nathan's growth.

Nathan grew steadily over the last month, but was still what I would have considered "small" for a baby--they estimated him around 6 lbs. In my mind, the bigger he was before birth, the better his chances would be after being born.

But whatever his chances were, we were about to find out...