Contact Info - Seattle Children's Hospital

If anyone needs to get in touch with me you can call the ICU desk 206-987-2040 and ask for Henry's Dad (that's me!) and they will transfer it in to the room 4276. My cell phone must be off when I'm in there so the other best way is to email or text to robrbecker [at] gmail [dot] com

Pray for Henry

A day after birth there were some clues that something was wrong with one of the babies. He was a too sleepy to nurse most times and was a little paler than brother. He had some trouble keeping stable glucose levels. All in all was was acting pretty normal though. Thankfully a diligent nurse (Robin I believe, thanks!) correlated feeding times and glucose levels and got the ball rolling that there might be something wrong. After the doctor heard a heart murmor and an EKG we learned that Henry has a malformed heart. Without an operation on his heart he would very likely not live. It is called Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome. This is very difficult to write, but everyone needs to know what is going on and my text plan is getting overwhelmed. (Please don't stop texting your support though)

The decision was made to bring Henry to Seattle Children's Hospital with me. Polly and Liam are currently still at Community Medical recovering and should be discharged soon. Henry is in very capable hands here. They keep great watch on him and he is comfortable and stable. Wednesday morning (9/30) the cardiology team and surgeons and everyone meets to decide the plan of action. The surgery will be sometime before the end of next week. I'll know after tomorrow if it will be sooner or later. They are not in an emergency rush since his heart is not nearly as bad as some.

So that is the update for now. Please pray for Henry he needs to get healthy and get back to his twin brother and Mommy.

See more photos here

How many of what now?

I'm posting here finally after a long break. The most amazing thing happened a few months ago. We went in for an ultrasound for Polly's 2nd pregnancy. Well, as the gray static moved around and Jeannie pointed out the blob that was our baby, I wondered... well what's THAT blob then? a few seconds after, Jeannie noticed and just like that.. we had TWINS. What a family accelerator!? From 1 to 3 like that? Woah this was overwhelming. I think I need 2 lunches to think this over. (Yes, I ordered what I thought was a soup & sandwich combo, and got 2 meals.. soup and sandwich. Completely ironic, yes)

Fast forward to Sept 26th.. Polly's belly is very large with 2 babies and they are 5lb 10oz last time we checked... No real signs of labor yet so I decide it's a great time to paint the kitchen of course. Somebody had to do it! It was half painted with a color called "Mars Mist" which as the name implies is kind of nebulous and creepy. So Polly and Lydia went off to Alberton to be taken care of by Linda.... with a payload of about 30lbs of concord grapes we had picked from our neighbor Dan (thanks!). They were going to make jelly and I would finish off the kitchen. Great.

Except about 3/4 of the way through the 2nd coat of "Thyme" colored paint (a much better name and color for the kitchen) Polly called and said her water just broke. Yowza, time to clean up this mess!

I threw together some things and off to the hospital where our brand new babies were born.

Welcome to the world:

Liam Riggs Becker - 12:29AM 5lb15oz 19 3/4 inches

Henry Reed Becker - 12:30AM 6lb 19 1/4 inches

(note: weight and lengths may be slightly off or interchanged.. I'm doing this from memory. But they are within 1oz and 1inch so, pretty much identical.)