RR: Looking back on a busy week in Georgia Tech recruiting, life as a dad

On the other side, last Monday night was the latest development on what has been a rocky few months in the Johnson household.

Following two rather non-eventful pregnancies, the writing should have been on the wall that a third may not be as "simple" and stress-free. Alas, the writing on the wall, were it there, was ignored.

A few months ago, my wife's blood pressure began to increase, and she began to feel a level of pain and discomfort that was unlike anything she had ever felt, pregnant or not. Increase may actually be an understatement; the numbers were rising fast.

Fast forward to her appointment on January 5th. Her readings on each of the previous appointments had gone up, and there had been discussions that a trip to labor/delivery may be in the cards if the trend continued.

With us being a one-car household, and Cherokee County still having the kids on "Christmas Break" this appointment was different than many of the others. Emory, Rowan, and I sat in the parking garage in a car full of constant prayer and electronics, anxiously waiting for word on what was next.

Mercifully, after 20 anxiety-ridden minutes, the phone vibrates, and it lists her blood pressure. The pattern had continued.

"I'll call you soon," a second text says. The next step turned out to be an immediate trip to labor/delivery at the hospital, where further testing would take place. From there, a decision would be made about whether or not an induction would take place that day, or if they felf the pregnancy could make it to the 37-week milestone which was the following Monday.

It was deemed following the results that the 37-week milestone was going to be reachable, and from there we went home to begin preparing ourselves. Bags were packed, the house was deep-cleaned, and a relative flew in from out-of-state to (temporarily) assist with our other two kids.

After a water-breaking assist from the obstetrician and several hours of labor, baby Johnson was born at 12:44pm on Tuesday, January 17th. Post-baby, my wife's blood pressure has returned to pre-pregnancy levels. Her other symptoms, too, have subsided.

We will never know what further symptoms of preeclampsia could have developed had the pregnancy gone full-term.

What we did find, though, was another powerful example of what prayer can do.

To each of you who reached out, sent a prayer, or even just said out loud "I hope everything goes well" the last few weeks, thank you. None of it went un-noticed, ignored, or unfelt.