Santa Rosa nurses who lost their home to fire welcomes new arrival of Hope
SANTA ROSA, Calif. (KTVU) - After losing their home in Santa Rosa's devastating Tubbs fire, two married nurses are celebrating the arrival of their first child and their gift of Hope.
Hope Huggins came into the world on Saturday, Oct. 14. She weighed in at a healthy 8 lbs., 4 oz.
For her parents, it was a world full of uncertainty as they had just days before lost pretty much everything they owned to flames that would engulf their home and thousands of others.
On Oct. 9 when the North Bay fires broke out, RN Benjamin Huggins was at work in the intensive care unit of Kaiser's Santa Rosa Medical Center.
He contacted his nine month pregnant wife Macy Huggins, who is also a Kaiser nurse, and urged her to evacuate.
Macy left the couple's house an hour before it burned down and found safety at a friend's home in Petaluma.
Benjamin could not meet up with his wife right away, as he felt responsible to continue caring for a critically ill patient and waited for the patient to be safely transferred to another hospital.
When the Huggins were reunited the following day, they were hit by the enormity of all they had lost, especially after months of preparing for the arrival of their baby girl.
“Now we have nothing, and we're bringing this baby into the world, and we had all this stuff that was going to be so perfect, and these ideas and perceptions about how it was going to be with her,” Macy is quoted as saying in an article posted on Kaiser Permanente's website.
While the fire left them with nothing, they would soon learn that the gift of generosity, especially during the most critical times of need, can renew your spirit and spring up hope.
The Huggins decided to have their baby at the Kaiser Permanente Roseville Medical Center’s Women and Children's Center, where the air quality in that region wasn't as bad as it was in the Bay Area from the fires.
A couple of hours after baby Hope was born, just rooms away, another new mother had given birth to a boy.
That mother was quite surprised with her new arrival.
She was sure she was having a daughter and had gone as far as purchasing clothes and other items designed for a little girl.
She joked about her situation with her nurses and asked them for suggestions on what she should do with all of the baby girl supplies she had accumulated.
An assistant nurse manager at the hospital got wind of the situation and decided it would be a great idea to introduced the two mothers.
After meeting one another, the other family offered to give away all of their girl clothing and toys to the Huggins.
Macy described the thoughtful act from a total strangers as "very touching and generous and overwhelming."
The Huggins are getting used to their new family of three and staying with friends for now.
The couple says that in the face of such loss and tragedy, they are cherishing the birth of their baby and the renewed Hope that she brought into their lives.