Jesse Clark Knapp is marrying Amber Laneé Cross today.  He has come a long way since he arrived on October 29, 1982.  Today he is 11,201 days old.  It seems good to review the events at the beginning.

His older sister Linnea was delivered so quickly that we did not make it to the hospital, so there were many friends who advised us to “set up a tent on the hospital grounds” or something similar.

On the night of October 27, contractions started in earnest.  We were all packed and ready, but the contractions stopped.  Our thinking went something like “Linnea is asleep and we don’t want to alarm the sitters too soon.  Let’s just lay down for a minute and we’ll get over to the hospital when the contractions start up again.”  Well, we woke up the next morning, still in our bed, still in our travel-to-the-hospital clothes, but with an extra sweater on our teeth. 

The next night, the same contractions, except this time they kept going into the early morning.  We dropped  Linnea off with Warren and Marcy, called the doctor service and headed to the hospital.  We had plenty of time to get checked in and settled.  The obstetrician arrived, and everything seemed to be going well.  At two o’clock in the morning there had been no progress for a half hour or so.  The doctor asked for history, “How long was it from the time the water broke until Linnea was born?”  About half an hour, we replied.  “Well, let’s speed things up a bit,” he said and proceeded to burst the water sac.  Diane grabbed my hand VERY tightly and said, “Don’t you go anywhere! This child is coming!”

The staff was quite helpful but way too relaxed as they moved us calmly from the “birthing” room to the “delivery” room.  Diane IS ready; she knows things are moving fast.  The doctor was taking his time with washing his hands and getting gloved up when the nurse interrupts him with, “Doctor, would you please turn around and catch this baby?”  Two or three pushes and Jesse arrives.  This seemed normal to us, but the delivery people were amazed at how fast this kiddo showed up.

Linnea had set the bar pretty high for interesting birth stories, but Jesse’s arrival tugged just as much at his parents’ heart strings.  I was pondering the significance of October 29.  Linnea had been born on Dot’s birthday (Dot is Diane’s mom), so symmetry was rooting for October 15, my mom’s birthday.  Or he could have waited another week for my birthday. 29 is a good prime number.  Late in the month is good, as Jesse discovered while celebrating his “golden” birthday in 2011 (age equals day of month).

It turned out that October 29, 1982 was the one year anniversary of the day that Guillain-Barré Syndrome  symptoms first appeared in my hands and feet.  Guillain-Barré is a neurological disorder that causes paralysis;  I was in the hospital a month and a half and off work for six months.  Exactly one year later, a son arrived as a sign of healing. God had brought us all a long way in that one year.