ASA'S BIRTH

Rakai had big plans for his twelfth birthday - March 11, 1996. We were letting him take the day off school and he was going skiing with his dad. Pretty exciting! But Asa had other plans.

Sunday morning, March 10 something wasn't right with my pregnancy. The baby wasn't due until the end of April. I called the doctor and he said just to lay down and take it easy. We lived in Heber Valley and the Doctor was in Salt Lake, a 45 minute drive. I followed the Doctor's orders for a couple of hours but things kept getting worse. We drove to Salt Lake. A quick check up in the emergency room and they sent us home. "You just need to rest," they said. Around 6:00pm things were getting really uncomfortable. I was really worried about the drive and we debated going to the Heber City emergency room. We actually were driving there but decided at the last minute to head down to Salt Lake.

I had lost a lot of blood and was white as a ghost. I was rushed up to the women's center. The doctor met us there and after doing a check up said the placenta was ruptured at 35% and rapidly declining. "At 50% the mother dies," he said. I was prepped for a c-section.

On the way down we called Grandpa Scoville and he met us at the hospital. He was out in the hallway telling the Doctor a story. The doctor tried to be polite but said, "if you want to give your daughter a blessing you should do that now. We don't have much time." He gave me a quick priesthood blessing and I was whisked away to delivery.

Asa was born at 8:53pm. I saw him from afar and then they took him away.

I woke up the next morning too tired and groggy to leave my room. It would be 48 hours before I would be united with my son. Each time the nurses came in I asked how he was doing. "Stable. His stats are neutral. They are steady and are not getting better or worse."

Finally I was well enough to be wheeled into nicU. There was my newborn baby, under an oxygen hood and hooked up to too many wires. I reached over, held his hand and sat by his side for nearly an hour. Nurses came over and talked to me, I talked to Ra, we talked to our baby. I was tired and needed to go back to rest. A few hours later the nurse came in and told me that Asa's stats had jumped up on the charts. They told me he had probably recognized the familiar sound of my voice and realized he was in a comfortable place.

A few days later I left the hospital without my baby and we drove back to Heber. I was too far away and still recovering from the surgery so I couldn't go see him as often as I wanted to. Ra worked in town and was able to visit him everyday. I would call the nursery to ask about him. The nurses only knew him as Puriri Boy. Unable to sleep in the quiet of and dark of the night I created a sign for his crib.

We went to visit Asa on Sunday March 17. We were surprised when they told us we could take him home. We had nothing with us. The nurses wrapped him up in a gown, gave us a few extra blankets and sent us on our way.

Rakai was happy to have his little brother and he still got to do his skiing trip.