First Baby of the New Year makes early appearance
It was a day filled with all kinds of excitement for the Soukkala family.By: Wendy Johnson, Pine Journal
- Soukkala family
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It was a day filled with all kinds of excitement for the Soukkala family. Jenn Soukkala was scheduled to give birth by caesarian section on Monday. But when she started showing signs of possible early labor last Friday, she and husband Joel went to the hospital for an exam.
That was around 10:45 a.m. The obstetrics nurse checked Jenn out and then left to call their family physician, Dr. James Rogers of Raiter Clinic. She returned to the room at 11 a.m.
Joel related, “The nurse said to us, ‘I wasn’t expecting to hear this from Dr. Rogers – but he’s wondering if you’d like to have a baby today!’”
Joel said he and Jenn just looked at each other and said, “Why not?”
At that point, Joel intended to run back to their home in Barnum to pick up their daughters’ overnight bags so they could stay with their grandmother in Cloquet that night, but he decided to first make a side trip to his office at County Seat Theater, where he works as general manager.
“I’d left my camera there, planning to take photos at an event on Saturday night,” Joel said. “It’s a good thing I stopped there, because Jenn called me on the phone and said the birth had been scheduled for noon!”
That meant he had just 23 minutes to get his things rounded up and head back to the hospital. While Jenn was calling her mother and a few others from the hospital to deliver the news, Joel was on his phone calling his family, the Pine Journal, and the florist who he’d arranged to have deliver flowers on Monday.
By the time he got back to the hospital, he was greeted by the nurse who told him, “Here’s your scrubs! They’re coming to get started at any minute.”
Baby Jackson Noah was born at 12:50 p.m., and mother, father, and baby are all doing well.
“I actually kind of liked it,” reflected Joel of the unexpectedly early delivery. “That way we didn’t have to sit and worry about it over the weekend!”
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