Our Second Born

I had taken a couple of days vacation so I could build a new shed out behind our house. My wife, Lee Anne, was 8 months pregnant and I was sweating like a race horse trying to put this 12x16 barn style shed up by myself.

Lee Anne’s grandmother had arrived the day before on the airlines to spend a week with Lee Anne. Lee had a doctor’s appointment the Friday afternoon of July 2, 1998. They left me to my misery hammering and nailing on my shed.

Later that day, as I was wondering when that wife of mine was going to get home, I saw the sheriff pull up in my driveway. I thought, “What have I done now?” As I exited the fence, he got out of his cruiser.

Sheriff: “Mr. Johnson?”
Dan: “Yes, sir.”
Sheriff: “Your wife’s in labor at the Baptist Hospital.”
Dan: “Are you kidding?”
Sheriff: “No. They couldn’t reach you on the phone, so they sent me to see if I could find you.”
Dan: “Are you prepared to take me?”
Sheriff: “No. We don’t get outside Bedford county.”
Dan: “OK, thank you, sir.”

I rushed inside and found messages on the answering machine. I returned Lee Anne’s call at the hospital. She said, “Dan, I’m having this baby.” I said, “Can’t they stop it?” She said, “Nope.” I said, “Have they given you something to induce labor?” Lee Anne said, “No.”

So, I decided I needed to go to the hospital. I rushed around, got the video camera, and a couple of things I thought Lee Anne would need and ran out to the car. And guess what, the battery in my 1983 Nissan Sentra was dead. It wouldn’t even turn over. I ran over to the neighbors house and asked if he would be willing to give me a jump. He came over and tried to start the car, but the car was not cooperating.

Finally, I called a friend of mine from church, David Boyce, who came and drove me all the way to the Baptist Hospital (1.5 hours away) so I could see my baby being born, but much to my dismay, he had been born 10 minutes after I had talked to Lee Anne, so I missed the whole thing.

Our new son seemed to be doing well for about an hour and then he started having trouble breathing. They took him into intensive care and that is how the next 18 grueling days began. Ben started on oxygen, then x-rays, then they cut a hole in his side because his premature lungs had leaked air into his chest cavity, and then they put him on a ventilator, but because he fought against the machine, they had to paralyze him with a drug. We drove back and forth nearly every day to check on his progress and to hopefully hold his hand.

Our First Born

In mid-January, Daniel and Lee Anne Johnson received some disturbing news--their baby had stopped growing inside the womb. The doctors determined that they would need to take the baby early in order to monitor it properly.

As soon I heard there were going to be complications, my heart tightened in my chest. Realizing that my only hope was in God, I called my family in Alabama to request prayer. My mother immediately called the church and got everyone from my home town praying for us. Between Orlando and Gadsden, we had hundreds of people lifting up prayers for our little one.

On January 29, 1997, the doctors induced labor. Within four hours Daniel and Lee Anne welcomed a new member into their family, Rebekah Dawn Johnson. An immediate x-ray of her premature chest revealed that her tiny lungs were filled with fluid. She was immediately put under an oxygen hood to enhance her irregular breathing patterns. With intravenous lines and monitor cables attached to her little body, she looked like an experiment from some science fiction film.

I never imagined the things that would go through my mind as I stood there and watched my first born daughter lay limp under the heating lamp. It was very difficult for Lee Anne too—watching the other mothers hold their babies and knowing that her own was just a breath away from heaven.

The first three days were pretty unstable. As the fluid in her body was slowly being absorbed by the surrounding tissue, her demand for oxygen fluctuated like a roller coaster. After several days, her breathing stabilized and the oxygen hood was removed.

When I heard that, it was like a breath of fresh air. I knew that she could start eating and that the worst was over. The next evening I sat by her isolette, cried, and thanked God for His goodness to us.

Rebekah was eating the required amount of milk within two days. She had a short bout with jaundice but with photo-therapy began recovering rapidly. It won’t be long now and little Rebekah Dawn will be sleeping in her own crib.