Caden Charles Breeding was born on June 6, 2007 @ 9:40 pm. He couldn't wait any longer (he was 3 weeks early! ) Caden means "excitement" according to one of the baby name books we have, and well, he has indeed brought lots of excitement in his first few weeks. This is along post, so if you want to skip to the excitement go to May 17, 2007.

October 31, 2006
Jennifer and Neal find out that we are expecting (not a big surprise, since they were trying). They both, however, have the same reaction... “Oh crap! What have we done?” ha!

December 14, 2006
Jennifer and Neal visit the doctor to hear the baby's heart beat for the first time. The drama begins, as they pull into the doctor's office, Neal's cell phone rings. It is the doctor's office saying the doctor is at the hospital, and they want to reschedule for Monday! So they go see the new James Bond movie, then mail baby bibs to the Neal's mom and Jennifer's parents to let them know they are going to have a new grand child!

December 18, 2006
Back to the doctor's office to hear the baby's heart beat. Neal asks, “Is there only one?” The doctor says, “I think so” and gets the portable ultrasound machine, so we get to see Baby Breeding for the first time.

February 15, 2007
Jennifer and Neal find out it is a boy, so they think? The baby was very modest and didn't want to share with us what he/she was.

May 17, 2007
Up until this point, Jennifer has had an easy pregnancy, no morning sickness and no problems. Throughout this whole time, Neal and Jennifer say to each other almost weekly... “oh crap, what have we done? We are having a baby! Ha! Ha!”

At her visit this week, her blood pressure was high. Her doctor monitored her closely week by week to keep an eye on her blood pressure. Over the next few weeks, Jennifer had a 3 non-stress tests done on the baby each had about the same result. Her BP was high at the start of the test, lower at the end (after her anxiety level had gone down, but the BP was still higher than normal). In all tests, the baby was fine.

May 31, 2007
At Jennifer's appointment today, she was put on “bed rest” for her high BP. Her Doctor said he wanted her to take it easy and to no longer work. She didn't have to stay in bed, but just needed to take it easy.

June 5, 2007
Jennifer goes in for a non-stress test and by the end of the test, her BP is lower than it has been since May 17th visit . It appears the bed rest is working... so we think!

June 6, 2007
Neal's office throws a baby shower luncheon for Neal and Jennifer, their last baby shower. Jennifer goes home after the shower, and puts up her feet to relax, and the fun begins!

A little after 2 p.m., she feels some discharge and goes to the bathroom and it is a lot of blood. She gets hold of Neal after a three attempts and tell him “come get me and take me in.” She is of course, by this point, pretty upset. So Neal VERY quickly gets home, gets Jennifer and gets her to the hospital. Jennifer is 37 weeks and a day along at this point..

The doctor does an ultrasound on Jennifer and then comes out and tells Neal “I think we need to induce and get that baby out so we can get Jennifer's BP taken care of.” So they put Jennifer on some BP medicine to “protect” her during the delivery and then put her on the medicine to induce labor.

Jennifer's parents are in Northern AR on a mission trip, but headed out as soon as they got our messages. My mom was shopping for the baby (imagine that?) and was on the road within an hour from Nashville.

After Jennifer has been in labor for a few hours and she still hasn't dilated much and her BP is still high, her doctor recommends a C-section. It is around 8:30 p.m.

About 9:30 p.m. they start wheeling Jennifer to surgery. When we get outside the room, a nurse says, “We are going to take mom in here, and dad, you go in there and get ready.” Jennifer said (later), when the nurse said that, she thought to herself, “Mom? Is my Mom already here? Oh! They are talking about me!!

Neal gets ready and joins Jennifer in the delivery room. When the doctor said, “we are just about to have that baby out of here” I said to Jennifer, “oh crap, what have we done? We are having a baby!” The doc replied, “It's too late now! ha!”

At 9:40 p.m., Baby Breeding, aka Baby-X is born. We get a quick peak and they take he to be checked out. At this point, and for the next day and a half, the poor guy doesn't have a name!

Baby Breeding was 5 lbs, 4 oz, 18 1/4” (note some reports had him at 18 3/4” but 18 1/4” has been verified. As with most little boys (especially white ones) that are early, he had some breathing problems, his respiration was fast. It was as if he was having a hard time catching his breath. His respiration was about 90 per minute. Around 40 per minute is normal.

He was started at 100% oxygen and slowly reduced as his respiration slowed. By 10:30 p.m. he was on about 60% oxygen, so he seem to be improving. By 2:30 a.m. He was down to 40%. A side note, we breath 21%, so that was the goal.

June 7, 2007
Baby Breeding (still nameless) is still breathing about 40% oxygen. It was discovered he had some air in his chest cavity that hadn't dissipated yet, and for his safety, he was moved to St. Francis in Monroe (about 30 minutes away) where they have a NICU and could take care of any problems that may occur. He also had some of the “mag” medicine in him, that was given to Jennifer to protect her from having a stroke (due to her high BP).

So early afternoon, he was moved to St. Francis by ambulance. At this point, Neal and Jennifer have not been able to hold him. Neal has seen him a few times, but Jennifer hasn't seen him since he was born. Jennifer got to rub on him some through the incubator before they transferred him to Monroe.

Neal and his mom checked on him later that afternoon (at which time he was breathing 21% oxygen, and Neal got to hold him for the first time.

June 8, 2007
Jennifer is told he she can be discharged a day early, but she'll have to push herself a little to be released early. She did and was discharged about 3 p.m. Jennifer, Neal, and Angie (Jennifer's sister) went straight from one hospital to the other one so she could see and more importantly hold Caden Charles for the first time. Side note: A decision was made that morning on the name.

June 9, 2007
Today was Caden's only setback in his stay in the NICU. He was moved the night before from the Level 4 area, to the Level 2 area. His set back was that his Jaundice level was up, so he got to spend the day in the sunlamp with some really cool shades covering his eyes.

June 12, 2007
Before Neal and Jennifer left St. Francis today, they have to go through a short “child care” training and CPR class. They both think this is a great sign that he is coming home very soon. At 10:30 p.m. they get a phone call from Caden's doctor who says he will be discharged tomorrow, once he has a final checkup.

June 13, 2007
Jennifer's gets her staples out this morning, but has one area of her incision that is not 100% healed. She had a lot of bruising and was told that she had a hemotobin, (old blood behind the skin) so she may have some leakage around the area.

Neal and Jennifer get home, rest for a couple of hours, then get the phone call saying they can come get Caden. So they arrive at St. Francis about 2:30 p.m. and Jennifer get's out of the car and blood starts running down both of her legs.

We end up having to take her to the ER. After hours of being there, the ER doctor comes in and is worried about Jennifer's BP, and won't take into consideration everything Jennifer has been through as being some of the cause. Adding to the stress, the NICU is shut completely down from 6 pm to 9 pm for any visitors, so Jennifer is afraid we are going to have to wait. I go and talk to Caden's nurse and he assures me he'll take care of us (and he did!)

By 7:00 p.m. the ER doctor is wanting to admit Jennifer and Neal promptly told him, “No, we are going home. Our baby is being discharged and we are going home. If we need to be in a hospital, it can be in Ruston, but you (ER doctor) should really talk to Jennifer's OB/GYN.” After he talks to Jennifer's doctor, we were released and able to start the discharge procedure.

About 9 p.m. Neal goes to get the car and as he pulls up to the ER entrance (where we have to go to exit the hospital), in drives an ambulance and 2 cop cars, delaying the pick up another few minutes.

By 9:15 p.m. we are ALL in the car and on the way to Ruston (after Caden's first trip to Chick-fil-A).

So we get Caden home, and are exhausted, start changing his diaper, and he is yelling (as he normally does during a change), and I translated for him... "Who are these people?? Send me back to the professional at the hospital! Please!" ha! ha!

He slept through that first night, and most of the the nights that have followed, minus us waking him up to feed him.

What else can happen?
Through out the last few weeks many have commented on what all has happen and how rough we have had it. What has gotten us through these weeks is our Faith in Jesus and knowing that he will not give us anything he doesn't think we can handle.

This scripture speaks of “temptation” and we believe that temptation (in one form) can be the stress of life, and giving it to it will lead to depression, anger, and wanting to give up.

“No test or temptation that comes your way is beyond the course of what others have had to face. All you need to remember is that God will never let you down; he'll never let you be pushed past your limit; he'll always be there to help you come through it.“
--1 Corinthians 10:13 (The Message)

And remembering that if we rely on Jesus, and not ourselves we can get through anything.

"I can do everything through him who gives me strength.” -- Philippians 4:13 (NIV)

Thank you for all of your prayers!

Neal, Jennifer, Caden, and Emma (our dog)