My boys are here.

My sweet boys made it home!!! Jeremy got here first, but don't tell, we let him win. I was going to announce my little mans birth. But I thought I would paste this in here from the Daily Herald they have done a much better job.



Baby comes just in time for dad to return from Afghanistan




Sydnee and Jeremy hold their newborn baby at the Orem Community Hospital on Thursday, Nov. 12, 2009. Jeremy took leave and left his unit in Afghanistan to come home for his son's birth. He will return to his duties overseas after Thanksgiving. JAMES ROH/Daily Herald

Heidi Toth - Daily Herald | Posted: Friday, November 13, 2009 12:15

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..Staff Sgt. Jeremy beat his son home by just a few hours Wednesday.

Both were even early; He left Afghanistan, on Sunday morning and flew 7,000 miles home, just in time for him to take his wife to the hospital so that their little boy could make his debut a month before his due date.

He timed his arrival perfectly; had the baby come on time, on Dec. 11, Jeremy would have completely missed him until next summer, when he finishes his tour of duty. He had come any earlier, Jeremy would have been en route. Had Jeremy left on Monday night, when planned, he would have arrived home on Thursday or Friday.

Mother Sydnee knew her husband was trying to get home; she'd called after an appointment Monday in which her doctor ordered bed rest because she was dilated. She didn't know that he'd left the base in the middle of the night, leaving a note for his team, to catch a helicopter to get to the commander's station to tell his higher-ups why he needed to go home sooner than planned. She didn't know if she'd be able to put off labor long enough to give him time to get there.

She did, though, and even put it off just long enough to meet him at the airport.

"That was a secret," Sydnee confessed; she was supposed to be on bed rest. "I'm risky like that."

"And then you went into labor while we were on the freeway," Jeremy said.

They had just enough time, even with bumper-to-bumper traffic on Interstate 15, to get to Jeremy's parents house, to allow him to hug their daughters, shower and change. Then, Sydnee said, it was time to go to Orem Community Hospital.

Their baby boy -- the middle name is Latin for soldier, and also represents the 7,000 of them his dad traveled to see him -- was born at 10:44 p.m., with no complications even though he was a month early. That may have been the least stressful part of Jeremy's week so far.

"I couldn't get home fast enough," he said. "The plane wouldn't go fast enough, the layovers didn't go by fast enough."

In the hospital room, the only indication of Jeremy's profession was his black POW/MIA shirt. He held his son easily, with just a little teasing from his wife about how he hasn't quite left the war zone behind. It did take some adjusting -- remembering that he was holding his newborn son, for example, and not a hand grenade, and that now was the time for sensitivity and caring instead of toughness, Jeremy joked.

That their son came in the last few hours of Veterans Day was just an added bonus, one that his father forgot about until his plane got to Dallas and was greeted by a crowd with signs and banners and the fire trucks giving water cannons outside his military transport there.

"I thought it was all for me," he said.

Ever the military wife, Sydnee had spent a while preparing herself to give birth alone. In one mind-set, she was ready for it: Jeremy has missed three of their four anniversaries and plenty of birthdays and other important events. In her other mind-set, she said, she knew emotionally there was no way she could not have him there.

She and their children have Jeremy until the day after Thanksgiving, when he returns to Afghanistan. After Thursday morning playing Mr. Mom -- he sent 5-year-old Ms. B to school with tangled hair and pants on backward, he admitted -- he knew who had the harder job.

"She's the hero," Jeremy said. "She's got the hard part. I live like a bachelor for 12 months."

"Yeah, you show up to make the baby, and you show up when he's born," Sydnee said with mock frustration. "And you're the hero!"

• Heidi Toth can be reached at (801) 344-2556 (801) 344-2556 or htoth@heraldextra.com.