</p><p> <em>Jessica Weatherford prayed that Zeke wouldn&#8217;t arrive on Valentine&#8217;s Day.</em></p><p><em>Once that passed, she prayed he wouldn&#8217;t be born on her fifth wedding anniversary, March 9, less than a week away. She didn&#8217;t want their anniversary to remind her and Dave forever of the baby they lost.</em></p><p>By 37 weeks, she&#8217;s really feeling the pregnancy. For nights, she has tossed and turned. She&#8217;s bloated, she always has to go to the bathroom, her legs are swollen.</p><p>At 1:30 a.m. March 6, a week before her C-section is scheduled, contractions begin. At 4:10 a.m., Jessica is admitted into Room 3607 at Overland Park Regional Medical Center. Patti Lewis of Alexandra&#8217;s House, a perinatal hospice, is already there.</p><p>Baby Zeke is coming.</p><p>Dave disappears from the room, a cell phone glued to his ear, reaching family from Jessica&#8217;s call list. He marvels at their good luck that Tori had spent the night with his parents at their home west of Lawrence. They didn&#8217;t have to wake a toddler, grab her diaper bag, toys and snacks, and get her dressed.</p><p>A wave of pain makes Jessica&#8217;s legs and body quiver. Her face contorts before the pain passes.</p><p>Nurses and doctors enter, monitor electronic beeps and blips, ask about her previous experiences with anesthesia, about her dental work, about the last time she ate.</p><p>The sound of a thumping heart fills the room, 132 beats a minute: Zeke. Just a quick check to see how he is doing.</p><p>Physician R. Tony Moulton enters, already wearing blue scrubs and shoe covers.</p><p>&#8220;Hello! Four a.m. in the morning! All right!&#8221; he says in a booming voice, clapping his hands.</p><p>&#8220;It won&#8217;t be long now, Jessica.&#8221;</p><p>Moulton has been kind and supportive. A look of relief settles on Jessica&#8217;s face.</p><p>Outside the room, her parents, Lori and Rick Singleton, arrive. Rick&#8217;s eyes are already red-rimmed. He stands tall in his knife-creased jeans and pointy-toed boots, wearing a black cowboy hat and gray handlebar mustache.</p><p>He holds Lori&#8217;s hand almost nonstop. She wears a fringed leather jacket and turquoise earrings. They met while vacationing in Montana years ago and have raised eight children, along with caring for 30 foster children.</p><p>Together they&#8217;ve been Jessica&#8217;s role models, a couple who live what they believe.</p><p>They cry, until it is time to greet their daughter.</p><p>&#8220;You&#8217;re pretty distinctive,&#8221; Jessica says to her dad as he enters her room. She giggles. &#8220;Everybody was asking about the guy in the cowboy hat.&#8221;</p><p>She seems so young to Rick. It wasn&#8217;t so long ago when he was in a different hospital, holding his wife&#8217;s hand, waiting for his twin girls to be born.</p><p>Jessica&#8217;s legs quiver from the pain. After kissing his daughter&#8217;s forehead, Rick presses his hands lightly on her legs, trying to calm them. Lori holds her daughter&#8217;s hand.</p><p>Dave enters the room once more, pacing back and forth. Still, he looks calm. He watches his wife closely. He asks whom else he should call, whether she needs her purse, her Bible or her notebook. He knows how Jessica likes to plan.</p><p>Her notebook! Still in the car.</p><p>Dave tells her he&#8217;ll retrieve it.</p><p>The family dog, Emma, needs to be let out, she reminds him. They left so fast, they forgot to put the beagle outside. Maybe a neighbor? Dave disappears to make another call.</p><p>A nurse enters the room with a stack of blue shoe covers, hair nets, face masks and big blue hospital gowns. The operating room staff has read Jessica and Dave&#8217;s birth plan. They are prepared for grandparents, a few aunts, Patti Lewis, a minister and a few friends.