ROGERS : Guardsman witnesses son’s birth ... by video
Posted on Thursday, October 2, 2008
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/adg/News/239005/
ROGERS — A Northwest Arkansas father on the front lines in Iraq was able to watch his son’s birth this week at Mercy Medical Center in Rogers via satellite.
Joni Corp, 29, of Prairie Grove delivered the boy by Caesarean section Tuesday, and her husband, an Arkansas Army National guardsman, watched the birth from thousands of miles away.
“It was better than pay-perview,” Matthew Corp joked Wednesday, via the same video conference system that linked him to his son’s birth.
Corp, a combat medic with the 39 th Infantry Brigade, spoke to his wife and the news media Wednesday via the hookup in her hospital room.
Joni Corp cradled Matthew Dale Warren Corp on a love seat, with the couple’s 3-year-old daughter Mackenzie nearby.
“Isn’t he beautiful,” Joni Corp said of the 7-pound, 5-ounce Matthew, swaddled in a babyblue blanket.
The couples’ communications were made possible by Freedom Calls Foundation, a non-profit group that provides a satellite network to connect deployed troops with their loved ones back home.
Freedom Calls Foundation has video conferencing stations in five military camps in Iraq that let soldiers participate in milestone events, such as births, birthdays, weddings and graduations.
Joni Corp contacted the Freedom Calls after her husband was deployed in April — his second deployment since 2006. Matthew Corp was in the delivery room for Mackenzie’s birth, and the couple wanted a repeat performance for their son.
“With Matt being in the guard, we didn’t consider ourselves [the traditional ] military family,” Joni said. “The separations have been really hard.”
Mercy Medical Center helped facilitate the video conference that linked the delivery in the fifth-floor birthing room at the hospital to Camp Victory in Baghdad.
“It was the first time the hospital had been involved in something like this,” spokesman Kyle Weaver said. “We were able to help a patient and help someone fighting overseas.”
Eric Nelson, the hospital’s information technology specialist, coordinated the video conference link.
“The operation was a little hard to watch,” Nelson said. “I’m an IT guy, not a medical doctor. I had to leave the room a couple of times.”
Mark Pickhardt, a Mercy obstetrician-gynecologist, conducted the surgery, while Matthew Corp watched.
“I was awake the whole time,” Joni Corp said, adding that some of the nurses cried during the delivery. “I could see Matt, and he was watching the baby being born.”
Matthew Corp said that he was surprised how smoothly the video conference of the delivery went.
“It meant more than anything,” he said. “Being home would have been better, but this was the next best thing.”
He’s due home in December or January and can’t wait to see his baby boy with a tuft of thick brown hair.
“He’s a tank, isn’t he ?” Matthew Corp said. “Look at that head of hair.”