Jadon Philip Randleman is here!  Jadon was born on November 21st.  He weighed in at 7 pounds, 14 ounces, and was 21 inches long.  Both Jadon and Heather are doing great.  Since he was three weeks early, there was a little concern that his lungs weren’t strong enough to expel all of the fluid in them, but he did just fine.  Thanks to all the fine staff at Skaggs Hospital for all they did to help Heather through the delivery.

But, as usual, Jadon’s birth didn’t happen without the crazy Randleman drama that is so typical of our family.  Here’s the story.

Since Heather was still three weeks away from her due date, and since none of the rest of our kids came earlier than the projected due date, I assumed that it was safe for me to take a weekend trip to Tulsa, OK.  The National Missionary Convention was going on that weekend, and Creation Truth Foundation had a booth there.  Dr. Sharp was teaching a couple of classes, and I was to be there to help out, since we will be joining the staff at CTF in June.  You can read all about that here.

So, Thursday morning, November 20, I got up around 4:00 am, showered and got dressed and packed and headed for Tulsa.  I arrived at the Convention Center around 9:00 am.  I hadn’t been there for more than an hour when Heather called me, letting me know that her water had just broken, although she didn’t loose all of the fluid until about 3:00 that afternoon.

I left Tulsa before 10:00 am and headed home.  I stopped in Joplin for gas, and since the gas station had a Wendy’s inside, I ran in for a burger to eat in the car.  I reached the beginning of the line at the same moment as another family reached it.  And, being the nice guy that I am, I allowed them to go before me.  They really took their time deciding what to order, to my frustration and impatience.  But finally, I had my bacon cheeseburger, and was out the door.

Just before I reached Mount Vernon, MO, traffic slowed almost to a stop.  There was an eighteen wheeler on the side of the road ahead, broken down.  Cars were trickling past one at a time.  I was four vehicles away from passing this when a highway patrolman pulled into traffic and blocked anyone else from going by.  It was a good thing, too.  Moments later, the cab of the truck was consumed by flames, fuel was running across the highway and into the median, and fire was raging everywhere.  I was four vehicles away from being past this and on my way.  If I just hadn’t let that family in front of me at Wendy’s… Oh, well.

So, I sat there for over an hour, watching them battle the flames consuming that truck.  And all the while, my wife is in the hospital, in labor, in Branson.  It’s only because of our good friends Henry and Trisha that she wasn’t still at home waiting on me.  Heather’s van had just had a new battery put in (by Wal-Mart; another story), and it was dead.  So she was at home with no way to get to the hospital on her own.  I called Trisha, who came and took Heather to Skaggs Hospital, while Henry took the kids and delivered them to the places they were staying, after feeding them lunch.  It’s good to have great friends.

Finally, the fire was under control, and traffic started to roll again.  I made it to Branson, and to the hospital.  It was now 3:00 pm.  It had been a full day already.  Immediately after I got there, Heather stood up, and the rest of her water spilled and labor began in earnest.  I believe that Jadon was waiting for me to get there before he came.

Jadon and Heather

Heather’s contractions started happening more frequently, and at 1:04 am, November 21st, Jadon Philip entered into our world.  At 7 pounds, 14 ounces, he is our smallest child.  All three of the others were larger.  Hannah was 9 pounds, 6 ounces; Lydia was 9 pounds, 12 ounces; and Titus was 8 pounds, 8 ounces.  And Heather is rather petite…

Our family has adjusted well to our newest addition.  Our only difficulty has been in getting Jadon to stay awake more during the day.  Instead, he sleeps all day, and then is awake most of the night, especially in the early morning.  I think he’s doing it on purpose…

But we are thankful for the gift of new life.  We are excited to see what kind of person Jadon grows to be.  And we are thankful for our great friendships; people like Henry and Trisha, who dropped everything to help, are priceless.  And there are other friends as well, people who permitted Hannah, Lydia and Titus to invade their homes and lives for a few days.  We cannot express our appreciation enough to people like that.  We just continually thank God that we have people in our lives who are the church;  people who’s friendships we value above practically anything else.  Those people we are proud to call family.