It’s official, our lives will never be the same! John Charles Peterson entered the world at 5:57pm on Thursday, May 7, 2009. He checked in at 10 lbs, 6 oz, 21 inches long - it has definitely been discussed that Liz gave birth to a 2 month old child. Liz and I are adjusting to life with a newborn and wondering how it is possible to love a little baby so much when all HE has done so far is eat, sleep, cry, and poop. We definitely have our work cut out for us with my medical school graduation next weekend, our cross-country move in 2 weeks, and the start of my residency next month back in St. Paul, MN. In spite of the stress, we feel incredibly blessed and are so thankful for our friends and family who have supported us, brought food, and sent encouraging texts and emails.

Our little man is named after his grandparents, John Peterson and Charles Hutson, and for now likes to go by the nickname J.C. Check out his photo gallery for all of the official pictures! We had quite the experience bringing him into the world, and as it is a relatively lengthy tale we will share it here to minimize any left out details in case you otherwise hear it second-hand. 

Tuesday, April 28
The actual due date. Liz and I had a delightful day at home, no baby.

Thursday, April 30
Pre-natal visit #12, 40 weeks and 2 days. Cervix still closed, no change from last week. Her doctor decided to go ahead and schedule an induction for next Monday if nothing happens over the weekend. We were hoping to have seen some progress but we’re enjoying these last few days together before the baby comes.

Monday, May 4
40 weeks and 6 days. Still no baby. We gathered all of our bags (we were warned that the induction may take several days) and arrived at the Loma Linda University Medical Center at 5:30pm to check in. After setting up an IV and several fetal monitors her doctor arrived, checked her cervix (still closed), and presented the plan for the next few days: The goal is to dilate her cervix to 4cm and then start Pitocin, a medication to stimulate the uterus to contract. The medication was given, IV fluids were started, and her diet was restricted to apple juice and jello.

Tuesday, May 5
41 weeks. The doctor arrived at 6am to do a quick exam, and no change in the cervix. Disappointing, but not entirely unexpected. Several additional doses of medication were given throughout the day, and by evening Liz’s cervix was soft and not quite 1 cm dilated. As you might imagine Liz was hungry, her feet were swelling up from the IV fluids, and we both were developing a little case of cabin fever. Late in the evening her doctor decided to try a procedure which involved inserting a catheter into the cervix and inflating a small balloon to help dilate overnight, but after several traumatic failed attempts we had to regroup. The new plan was to go ahead and start the Pitocin at a low dose overnight, hoping that the contractions would help the cervix dilate on its own. Ok, fine, but now it’s starting to hurt.

Wednesday, May 6
41 weeks and 1 day. More IV fluids, more apple juice, more jello. By this point we had developed a bi-hourly bathroom ritual which required my assistance to coordinate an IV pump, several fetal monitors, and a very pregnant Liz. Another exam at 6 am and surprise, no change in the cervix. Now we began to wonder if this baby was ever going to come out. More medication was given throughout the day, and still no change by 6 pm. Now 48 hours into the induction, we began to wonder what our options were. We could stay the course and keep pushing medication indefinitely, quit and go home to wait for the baby to come on his own, or give up and play the c-section card. Liz was becoming physically and emotionally exhausted as she hadn’t eaten real food in 2 days and was tethered to the bed by all kinds of wires and tubing. We brought up our concerns with Liz’s doctor who agreed with our assessment and was determined to keep going, but she also said she understood the toll this was taking on Liz and reassured us that a c-section was a reasonable option when we had had enough. So… more medication and we settled in for the night. Or so we thought.

The night nurse stopped in at 7:30 pm to introduce herself and at first we were put off by her controlling personality. She strongly encouraged Liz to let her replace her IV with a better one, and repeatedly came in to adjust the fetal monitors. So far not a good start to the night. 2 hours later we realized that she was actually on top of her game when she stopped in again to tell us she had just paged Liz’s doctor because she was concerned that the baby’s heart rate was too high (180’s). I had noticed this occasionally throughout the day, but otherwise the heart rate pattern was not concerning and Liz was not running a fever. The nurse had gone back and reviewed the monitor data for the entire day and wasn’t comfortable letting it go any longer. Liz’s doctor arrived along with the ob/gyn physician on call and decided to place internal fetal monitors to better evaluate the baby and Liz’s contractions. This required her to break Liz’s waters and after a few quick minutes this was completed. Liz was now 3cm dilated, so the doctor decided to go ahead and start the Pitocin again at full strength and allow the anesthesiologist (who happened to be one of the best doctors either of us had ever met) to place an epidural for pain control. 30 minutes later we were alone again, epidural successfully placed, somewhat shell-shocked, wondering what had just happened, and very anxious for the arrival of a healthy baby.

Thursday, May 7
41 weeks and 2 days. Liz was now contracting regularly with the Pitocin (painlessly, thankfully), and baby’s heart rate had normalized. The 6am exam found her dilated to 4cm which means she was now in active labor on track for a mid- to late-afternoon delivery. Around 11am a nurse stopped in to fix the internal fetal heart monitor, and noticed that she was completely dilated. Wait, what??!!! Sure enough, Liz’s doctor quickly arrived to confirm that she was in fact 10 cm. So much for our plan B discussion from last night. The plan now was to let the contractions move the baby down a little further before Liz would start pushing. We were getting excited, and 2 hours later the nurse came back and we started pushing. And pushing. And pushing…. More pushing, and another 2 hours later still no baby. Liz’s doctor returned, conferred with the ob/gyn physician on call and together they determined that the baby might be too big, her contractions were starting to weaken, and her temperature was starting to rise (an indication of a possible uterine infection - not good for baby). At about 5pm the doctors had seen enough and started making arrangements for a c-section. Not the way we hoped it would go, but after 2 hours of pushing Liz was ok with this decision. Things proceeded relatively uneventfully after this (as far as c-sections go) and John Charles was born at 5:57 pm.

He is perfectly healthy and mom is doing great as well! We spent 3 more nights in the hospital for Liz to recover, thankfully while eating regular food and without IV fluids, and arrived home fittingly on Mother’s Day, May 10, with our little man. Again, we are thankful for everyone’s prayers, emails, phone calls, facebook posts, and text messages! We are overjoyed with our new addition and will be posting more in the future once we get settled after our move back to Minnesota.

After a lengthy application and interview process, Liz and I were pleased to discover that we will be spending the next 3 years back in St. Paul, MN, where I will be completing my medical training in emergency medicine at Regions Hospital.  I’m excited in part because I used to work as an ER tech at Regions, so this will be a return to where it all began for me.  After the Match ceremony, my class sponsored a party at K1 high-speed indoor karts in Ontario where we spent the afternoon tearing up the indoor tracks and playing Rock Band.

Liz and I had quite a bit of reward points on our American Express card, so we decided to celebrate the Match and our imminent baby addition by spending the weekend at the Montecito Inn in Santa Barbara.  Although it was a little cool, we had a great relaxing weekend in one of our favorite California cities - the perfect way to celebrate!

There is a lot more to California than palm trees, beaches, and Hollywood.  One thing that has struck us over the last three and a half years is the diversity that exists out here.  We can drive an hour in any direction and be at the beach, the vineyards of Temecula Valley, Palm Springs, the middle of the desert, or play in the snow in the mountains up by Big Bear.  In order to feel satisfied with our California experience, we decided to pay a visit to two national parks we have never explored, Yosemite and Joshua Tree.  Both are stunningly beautiful and amazing examples of God’s creativity.  Check out the albums below for pics…

www.harvest.org/chris

Please read Pastor Greg’s thoughts on the passing of his son.  We are encouraged and inspired by his faith in this tragedy.

http://www.harvest.org/chris/memorial-fund/you-choose-dad.html

Love, Bjorn & Liz

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The following is the most encouraging devotion (or encouraging anything, outside of the Bible) that I have ever read.  Bjorn and I are beside ourselves this week as we try and sort out a tragedy that has occured within our church family.  At some point I’ll probably post more details as to how and why this tragedy hits so personally for us, but for now, this is all that needs to be said.  

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By Pastor John Collins:

“Lord, if you had been here . . . ”

These are the words of Mary and Martha at the death of their brother Lazarus in John 11.

There, at that moment in time, when death was cruel and vile and heartless, they stood before what seemed an unbreakable valley of darkness. They wrestled with grief, and the grief was unbearable and unbeatable because grief can never be beaten, only experienced.

And so when Jesus came to them, they said it, “Lord, if . . . ”

They both said it, at different times, but to His face. We get the sense that they most likely had said it among themselves, too.

“Lord, if . . . if you had only done this or that . . . ”

It is the perfectly human response of a heart that is broken because hopes have been dashed and their world shattered. Someone they loved has been taken away. Life as they knew it was now different. They stood on the cliff of that dark valley and peered into the blackness and thought, “Lord, if . . . ”

This morning, as I write this, my pastor and his wife stand on that cliff. They are suffering the loss of their eldest son, who was taken from this earth quickly and tragically Thursday. They are battling the unmerciful giant called grief and, like Mary and Martha and every human soul who has waged that battle, they are losing.

It is painful to watch for the end is not near, and with every merciless blow they cry out, “Lord, if . . . ”

I have been in that ring before, but only as a young man of 16. My father had died of cancer. The last night of his life, I left the hospital with the words, “I’ll be back to watch the World Series game with you tomorrow.”

There was no tomorrow. I had missed those precious last hours with him. And I grieved, “Lord, if I had only stayed with him . . . ”

“Lord, if . . . ” is the cry of every forsaken moment, every unsaid word, every failure to perfectly love the ones we love and now can only remember.

“Lord, if . . . ” is how we ask God, “Why?”, when we know He won’t answer, when we are unsatisfied and frustrated by “seeing through a glass darkly.”

“Lord, if . . . ” echoes in the darkness and, like all echoes, it returns with no answer. The price of life and love is death and separation. As C.S. Lewis once said, “That’s part of the deal.”

So where is Jesus? We ask, “Lord, if I must drink this cup of grief, where are you?” To that, we have an answer in Psalms 139:8–12:

“If I go up to heaven, you are there;
if I go down to the place of the dead, you are there.
If I ride the wings of the morning,
if I dwell by the farthest oceans,
even there your hand will guide me,
and your strength will support me.
I could ask the darkness to hide me and the light around me to become night—
but even in darkness I cannot hide from you.
To you the night shines as bright as day.
Darkness and light are both alike to you.” (NLT)

For Mary and Martha, the darkness and grief for Lazarus was temporary. Jesus allowed it so that His power over death could be made known at the resurrection of Lazarus.

Jesus was there, orchestrating His plan. Out of the darkness of that tomb came a foreshadowing of his own resurrection, which would give light and hope to all the world now that death was defeated.

Where was Jesus? He was there in the darkness of that tomb. And before raising Lazarus, He was with Mary and Martha, weeping with them!

Where is Jesus? He is forever in the midst of our darkness, in the black caverns of our life. He sees the grieving widow. He sees the grieving father and mother. He sees our pastor and his wife and He visits them in their grief. He knows the pain of the journey.

Isaiah said, “He is a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3 NKJV). It is comforting to know that our sorrows are His sorrows and that He knows the aching sense of loss and grief. God never promised to remove our grief, only to give it purpose.

Mary and Martha were united with Jesus in sadness, the grief of loss. And Jesus entered into that grief.

How sweet and comforting to know our God is with us in our moments of desperation. He is the King who bears the full, blunt force of our “Lord, ifs . . . ” and then sits next to us with a loving arm around our shoulder and weeps.

It is in these moments with Jesus that we come to know that the darkness only hides His face. One day, when the darkness is gone, His face will be the light of heaven.

My heart breaks for Greg and Cathe. I have come to know Jesus through Greg’s faithful teaching of the Word of God. I watch and wince at every blow of grief, but I am confident there are blessings in the buffeting and grateful that Jesus is with them.

By John Collins, Administrative Pastor, Harvest Christian Fellowship

So, perusing my new BFF Facebook this morning, I found a note from one of Bjorn’s classmates and not only is it enormously entertaining, it is disturbingly accurate - so I had to post it.  Now you can understand why we have been crabby for the last 3 years!!!!  Here it is - thanks to Julie Jeyaratnam….

1. Test questions. These are usually asking about something that you have never heard of in your life. It definitely was not covered by the lecture notes, required reading, or review books. Or if you have heard of it, it is something that you had tried to clarify while you were studying, and you extensively looked up the answer to no avail. Now they test you on it because they know there is no correct answer. Or option #3, it is a question for which you DO know the answer, but the correct response is not an answer choice. They instead give you several choices of wrong answers, and you must guess the one they arbitrarily chose to be right.

2. Gunners. There are two types of gunner med students: 1) the studiers and 2) the aces. The studiers are classmates who panic if 3-5 minutes elapses without studying. They will run you over if you get in their way, possibly even hurt you badly, and they won’t give you any medical help either because it would take away study time. The acers, though less obsessed with studying, are fighting to be number one in class rank (there seems to be about 30 of them or so) and they get mad if professors try to give helpful tips or reviews for exams. “It’s not fair” they complain “I won’t look as smart if only 10% of our class fails instead of 50%.” These are the students who will know the answers to all the test questions mentioned earlier, even though they can’t explain how they figured them out. Slapped, that’s what these folks need.

3. “Vacation time.” Fourth year of med school is supposed to be the best year because you get several weeks of vacation time. Little do they tell you that they count the last week you are taking your 3rd year finals as a week of 4th year vacation time. What am I missing? How does 3rd year finals count as vacation for 4th year? It’s not like I’m going crazy over one week, but it’s the prinicple of the thing that matters. Tests are NOT VACATIONS.

4. Abuse. If you ever happen to run into a doctor, please take the oppourtunity to remind them that MEDICAL STUDENTS ARE NOT FREE LABOR. Docs may THINK that we are there just to go out and buy them pizza (and pay for it too). The may THINK that we are there just to be a receptacle for their anger when they feel like dumping. But nope. We’re not. Also, we don’t like to work 18 hours a day 7 days a week, and we don’t like to stay up all night following the night float residents around when they’ve only been up 5 hours and we’ve been up 24 hrs (cause we’re on call). Especially if there is nothing going on.

5. Cost. Medical school costs so dang much. So much that I signed away 11 years of my life to the USAF to pay for it. Arg. Where does $200,000 go? Could it be those cushy call rooms they provide for us at LLUMC? OH wait, we don’t really have call rooms. We sleep in patient rooms on gurneys IF the patients have left. What about the call rooms at RCRMC? (We actually have ones there.) The ones with beds covered in so many dark stains that they look mottled blackish-brown and smell like… rotted something or other? No… those are paid for by the county. Hmm… maybe it was those free rice and bean burritos they gave us for lunch that one time.

6. Boringness. Medical school has a way of making subjects that were once irresistably interesting into something so boring that it could be used as torture. Take bioterrorism, for example. In undergrad, Dr. Shors told us about how the Soviets (ok Russians, whatever) stole several vials of smallpox from us and how they could wipe out the USA iif they set even one of them loose. SO EXCITING!!! Everyone would almost pee their pants in that class. However, in medical school for bioterrorism, we watched 7 VIDEOS 40 min each OF POWERPOINT SLIDES WITH SOMEONE DRONING ON about some random acronyms that didn’t stand for anything, as far as I could tell. 5 slides and 40 minutes of BLAB BLAB BLAB BLAB… ahh I couldn’t stand it. Please, real bioterrorism has GOT to be more interesting.”

I flipped from cable news over to NBC just in time to catch the tail end of Tom Brokaw’s sad annoucement.  I think it was in that moment that I first realized the size of this tragedy.  I grew up watching Tom Brokaw on the news every night - never had he looked like this.  His eyes were swollen and so red - It was almost unbelieveable.  My mouth was hanging open though, and I was still trying to process.

Now there are two things I don’t get here.  One…….why and how could he have died so young - and just dropped dead, nonetheless?  Two……why have I been just SO SAD about this?  True, I ALWAYS loved hearing Tim on the Today show, or watching him those few quick moments on Sundays before we had to head to church (it was always Meet the Press - that’s the only option on Sundays).  And, I totally remember that “Florida, Florida, Florida” moment  :)  If you know me, you know that I am a news junkie, and I tend to get attached to my anchors.  Moving to California was partially because of medical school, but largely an effort to get back to a market where Paul Magers reads the news.  (I was devastated when he left Minnesota!)  So, call me wierd, but that’s just how I am.  And I guess if you think of it that way, it makes a little sense that I would be saddened by Tim’s passing.

The wierd think about this though, is that I was not SAD at first - I was shocked, but not sad.  Yet it took less than 10 minutes of listening to the commentators’ broken-hearted comments about Tim, and the tragedy of this loss, for a deep sense of sadness to set into my heart.

By Sunday night, trying to watch our Tivo’ed version of this week’s MTP with the empty chair, I was trying to fight back tears.  By Wednesday’s nationally televised Memorial Service, I wasn’t even trying anymore!  I had to turn it off to watch at another time, when I am less sad over this loss, our country’s loss.

Last night, Bjorn & I marvelled at the circumstances of his funeral - It was crazy!  Every politician, journalist and commentator you can find - plus McCain & Obama embracing - are you KIDDING me?  This thing was like a state funeral!  Presidents don’t get that sort of reception when they pass!

So leave it to my wiser-than-me hubby to help me understand…..first, that I was not crazy for feeling emotion over the loss of someone I have never even met…..and second, for making sense out of the tragedy.  Bjorn reminded me, the reason we are so sad, is because of the legacy that Tim leaves behind - and that legacy reaches so far beyond politics, into our very hearts.  EVERY SINGLE ONE of the journalists, politicians, musicians & others who eulogized this man, offically or unofficially, spoke of his love for his family as being FIRST and FOREMOST in his life.  Well, not even - Faith was first, and that rang loud and clear in the last five days as well.  They told us that his son was the most important thing in the world to him.  That he spoke of Luke constantly.  That everytime a colleague had a child or lost a parent, Tim was on the phone or writing a card.  That he loved to throw back a beer with his son’s college friends - in his son’s words, “even more than he wanted to attend a state dinner” !  That he consistently & repeatedly over time, reminded colleagues & subordinates that family is THE MOST important thing (along with faith).  That he wrote two books about FAMILY not politics.  Bestsellers, too by the way. 

One of my friends became a fan of Tim Russert on Facebook - so of course I had to click on the page (and become a fan ).  I was sitting here tonight, feeling kinda melancholy about life for some reason (unrelated to Tim this time) - and started reading through the comments Tim’s Facebook fans had posted.  My tears started rolling again.  This is truly an amazing man we have lost.  We will miss his voice on Sunday mornings, and oh man, how will we ever understand the election this year without him….. But we have the legacy.  The legacy that can make an impact on individual lives and cause the country take a collective pause to re-evaluate what is important in life.  This is some of what I read on Facebook:

* “Mr. Russert’s death has helped me to grieve my father’s death after almost three years. ”

* “When men are so desperately needed to take the leadership role in their families, Mr. Russert was a fine example of what it meant to be a real man.”

*  “Tim Russert was the only reason I understood anything about politics.”

*   “Tim was such a breath of fresh air in a world full of depressing news nowadays….we miss you already, Tim. Thanks for so many years of educating the American voter so that we may make the right decisions to keep this country moving in the direction that it should……Forward.”

*  “Rest in peace. Job well done.”

Maybe feeling sad that this guy has moved on is not the craziest thing after all.  RIP Tim.