Hello Toby Gregory, Nice to Meet You.

Today we welcomed our newest family member, Toby Gregory Houston. With our first child, Maxwell, Covid struck and that change caused me to have to sit in the parking lot and “tune in” to the birth via facetime. With this child, I was on military deployment/training over the last few months, but at the end of the day, with the help of some amazing people, we are a happy family of 4.

Over the last 5 months, I have been deployed to the Ohio National Guard at Fort Gordon in GA. and my amazing wife has been killing it back home, finishing out her rotations, raising Max, and still making it to drill to serve. Up until last night at 22:00 we didn’t know if I would be able to make the 07:00 induction but after a wild ride, we are happy to announce that we have a happy, loud, and healthy baby boy, Toby.  

I want to take a minute to thank everyone who helped us make this possible. The original due date for Toby was November 10th, 2022 and I tested out of the training in Georgia on November 9th but I was scheduled to be there until November 29th. On Tuesday night, my Ohio unit came to the rescue led by SSG Weaver and 1SGT Cockerill. These two men went to bat for us in a really big way and got the schoolhouse to agree to let me graduate early. This combined with the support from my AIT unit, D551, I safely arrived in Cleveland last night at around 22:00. Thank you so much to the military personnel that made this a reality especially 1SGT Clayton and SGT Moore.

This morning we arrived at Wooster Hospital around 06:30 for a 07:00 induction. Ashley did an amazing job and in record time delivered Toby at 14:33 after a short 8-minute labor. The team at Wooster Hospital was amazing especially our nurses Lydia, Adrianna & Erin, and Dr. Marcanthony they made us feel very welcome. Also, thank you to Candice, for being here for us and being our support person.

Details

Name: Toby Gregory Houston (Toby for Ashley's grandpa Tolva and Gregory for Barb and Tom Gregory)

Weight: 9lbs 1oz

Length: 21 inches

Song: The Four Tops-I Can't Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch)

Photo Dump

Thank you to Ryan and Nick for helping with my first surprise flight home, thank you to Ashley's Mom Shari for going with Ashley to pick me up from the airport, and thank you to my Mom and Dad for watching Max today during the birth. We love you.