Induced Labor Lets Dying Dad See Baby

Texas man with colon cancer wept holding child
By Neal Colgrass,  Newser Staff
Posted Feb 13, 2012 7:00 PM CST
Induced Labor Lets Dying Dad See Baby
In this Jan. 19, 2012 photo provided by Diane Aulger, her husband, Mark Aulger, holds his 1-day-old daughter Savannah, at a hospital in Plano, Texas.   (AP Photo/courtesy of Diane Aulger)

A Texas man with only a few days left to live held his newborn baby daughter for the first time—because his wife had her labor induced two weeks early, the AP reports. Holding tiny Savannah in a hospital bed, Mark Aulger "cried, and he just looked very sad," says wife Diane. He sleepily held her a couple more times during the week, then died five days later, leaving Diane to raise their three children and two teenagers of her own.

Their ordeal began when doctors diagnosed Mark with colon cancer last spring. He considered himself healthy after surgery and six months of chemo, but last month his breathing worsened and doctors gave him less than a week to live. "Mark said, `I'd like to see the baby,'" Diane explains. So she had birth induced in a delivery room beside Mark's bed. Now "we're living day-to-day as if dad's still here," she says. "We know dad is here with us. They talk to dad. Mark was a very funny, funny dad." (More cancer stories.)

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