Rebecca Stark has to be hands down the greatest OBG in the world. There, I said it. The sooner I got that out, the less I’ll be concerned about making sure that I say it.

Over the years, we’ve been lucky enough to get some really, really amazing medical professionals to look after us:

• Dr. Lee Townsend. The most amazing dentist you will ever meet.
• Dr. Janine Kohler. Janine is the person we measure everyone by. We were probably spoiled as she literally lived in our back yard for 4 years. Housecalls, watching Mira whilst I mowed the lawn and just giving all kinds of great medical advice from over the fence. We miss our old family doctor. Truly.
• Dr. Shenandoah Robinson. The amazing woman who performed Mira’s brain surgery. She made our little miracle ok.
• And now we’re adding a new name to this short list. Dr. Rebecca Stark

Taking good care of those two!

Honestly, I hadn’t met her until maybe a few months ago. All I knew was that Erika kept going on about some doctor she found from her hometown that was her new OB. Yeah, ok. Now that I’ve met her more than once. Now that I’ve seen her deal with our concerns and issues, I’m pretty convinced she’s the real deal.

I hate to say it as I try to stay as positive as possible on here. But we’ve met some terrible doctors. And we’ve been helped by bad doctors. Sometimes I feel like I’m in some weird version of the movie The Sixth Sense. I’ll be chatting with Erika and say, “I see bad doctors. They’re everywhere, they don’t even know they’re bad!”

We had a bit of a scare last week. If you just hear that Erika gained 4 pounds in a day, had one high blood pressure reading and had a bad headache she couldn’t get rid of. You may think thats not a big deal. That sounds like something that just happens. However, Erika and Mira were knocking on deaths doorstep just 3 and a half years ago.

I remember Mira’s birth like it was yesterday. And the two words “HELLP Syndrome” still send shivers down my spine. So here I am, a few years later, a lot smarter and a lot more worried. Mortality rates of HELLP Syndrome are 1% in mothers and anywhere from 10% to 60% in the baby. May not sound like much, but 1 in a 100 is not exactly the odds I’m shooting for with my wife. And 1 in 10 is definitely not what I’m looking for in our baby.

I want a doctor that takes this thing seriously. Someone that gets that we are worried most days. And someone that listens and does everything they can to ensure the health of my family. So far aces for Rebecca Stark. The hard part is still coming, but I’m impressed thus far.

Today Erika had a quick checkup from last weeks hiccup as I like to call it. They put her on a chair and ran a “No Stress” stress test. What is that? I haven’t the slightest idea. It looks a lot like this:

The "No Stress" stress test!

And those belts strapped to Erika’s belly send signals to some machine. Then Erika hits some button that puts dashes on a print out every time the baby moves. The machine also records the baby’s heart rate. That looks like this:

Each little dash is the baby moving

What did this show? Mostly that the baby is great, that Erika is doing great and we are back on track! Dr. Stark even gave Erika the green light to go back to work on a limited basis. Awesome!

Here’s the big picture. I believe we’re both thinking 4 weeks will probably be the max that we’ll make it before they’ve gotta get the baby out. But we’ve had a few good days, really good days. So, we are optimistic! The baby is still growing. Erika and I have a much better idea of what her limitations are. No more Cavalier games or 7 hour car rides.

We are encouraged and we are excited about the coming days. I’m on a roll now, so check back in often. More posts will be hitting the website on a regular basis! Keep the positive vibes coming our way…