Health & Fitness
Infant Surprises Green Beret Dad at Kaiser Permanente Redwood City
Soldier's holiday leave didn't mesh with wife's "due date"---he feared missing his child----and then came a surprise.
Green Beret Samuel Jimenez was due to return to Afghanistan for military duty on Jan. 5. His wife, Frishta, expecting to deliver their third child, was due on the 12th.
“I felt like I was on a roller coaster of emotions”, said Samuel, who was on holiday leave, fretting that he would miss his child’s birth. Frishta kept reassuring Samuel. And being optimistic.
Frishta said every time she felt a contraction during her pregnancy, she’d call her mother-in-law Maria Jimenez, a long-time Kaiser Permanente labor and delivery nurse who works at the Redwood City facility and lives nearby, to ask for advice.
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“I had contractions on-and-off for a while, so I was just ignoring them,” says Frishta.
But over the holidays, her contractions just seemed more pronounced, and finally, during a holiday visit to the in-laws, Nurse Maria marched Frishtra over to Kaiser Permanente Redwood City to get checked out. Frishta was admitted immediately to the hospital and delivered little Angelica Alicia early on December 31st.
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“I was shocked,” says Frishta. “I wasn’t expecting it. And Samuel was thrilled.”
The issue of conflicting due dates got resolved after all, and Samuel met his new daughter before reporting for military duty.
On seeing his daughter dozing in her crib at the Kaiser Permanente hospital, the Green Beret smiled.
Frishta said when her sons were born, they were both early. “I was kind of hoping that my daughter would be early too, but then I thought, no, she’s a girl, she’ll probably take her time.”
The family had heard about a special pizza, the Prego Pizza served at Skipolini’s in Walnut Creek, that was said to speed along delayed deliveries. Samuel said he really liked the pizza with 13 ingredients. Frishta said it didn’t do much for her.
“I’m sure many moms would like to find a simple, non-medical way to deliver their baby whenever they wanted to,” said Darcy Longchamp, a nurse and Assistant Director of Labor and Delivery at Kaiser Permanente Redwood City. “Unfortunately, you can’t make it happen.”