Vladimir and Nino, Orthodox Christians in America from the country of Georgia, are refugees from the Hurricane Katrina. They gave birth to their first child as they fled the storm in Louisiana. Their moving story is below, culminating in the glorious baptism of their new son Alexander at St. Johns’ this morning (October 1, 2005):

(Vladimir on the far left and Nino next to her son.)

Dear Fr. Jacob,

Thanks to all for this day of my sons' baptism once again. Nina and I are both very happy that our son was baptizied.

Here is my story which I'll try express as vividly as possible:

As you know I lived in Atlanta for almost 3 years before I moved out. I spent following year in Birmingham, AL and later relocated in Louisiana. I've been living in Metairie which is New Orleans outskirt over past 1.5 year and doing my Infectious Diseases fellowship training at Tulane University. In October of last year I happily married Nino (or Nina) and soon after we found out great news about our future parenthood. We both were very excited and could not wait the date of our son's arrival. And due date was August 28. As time was approaching our emotions and impatience had been swelling as well. 

Right before the due date Mother-nature prepared a "surprise" for us - hurricane-monster Katrina headed right to New Orleans with estimated landfall time on August 29-30th. In general, the people of NO did not accept hurricane alerts too seriously and being single also I stayed in the city when Ivan was coming; but this one seemed truly ominous.

Starting from Saturday morning (August 27th), a day before of mandatory evacuation thousands of cars lined up on their way out of New Orleans. The traffic was bumper-to-bumper with average speed of 10 (!) miles/hour... And don't forget, my son had not shown up yet!

 It was really hard to make a right decision whether: a. to leave and take a risk of possible on-the-road labor or b. to stay in the safe place for Sunday and Monday hoping and praying to get the transportation (but how?) to the Labor & Delivery Unit (LDU) in case of need. Nobody would ever imagine that the real consequences would be way more serious.

Saturday night I conquered with plan "b" and headed to local Veterans Hospital which is blocks away from LDU. I tried to get the doctors call room for my family but approval turned out to be complicated because of need of Medical Director's signature. I could not reach him by all different means. And later I decided to stay at less comfortable Infectious Diseases office also on the same campus; So, I spent a Saturday night at home with a plan to move into the office next morning.

On Sunday at 7am my close friend Zurab woke me up and with terrified voice urged me to immediately leave the city since Katrina reached its maximum – the category 5. Zurab who is anesthesiologist, was on duty and had to stay with his large family. (Zurab is now the Godfather of Alexander)

I did not think too long: quickly packed all basic items and in my situation it included “on-the-road labor kit”: a medical scissors to cut the umbilical cord, sterile dressings, tapes, scalpel just in case, etc. And our just extended family hit the road. (Don’t get tricked; “extended” I mean my mother-in-law who came to visit us from overseas Georgia just 2 days prior to this mess).

We were heading out… but where? North or West? Since an evacuation was in action for almost 2 days finding the hotel/motel room in area of 200-300 miles radius was almost impossible. And don’t forget, first you have to drive this distance for 20-24 (!) hours.

And miraculously my another friend George called me from Lafayette, LA (120 miles west from New Orleans) telling me that he was on vacation and we could stay at his apartment. What a relief!

At least we knew which direction to drive. It took long 8 hours to reach final destination. We rested that night and next evening my wife started feeling something “unusual”; 3 hours later we ended up in Lafayette’s Children Hospital and at 6.30 pm of August 30^th 2005 Nino and I were proud parents of our beautiful son Alexander.

I should mention the generosity and hospitality of medical and nursing staff of Lafayette Hospital.

We were enormously happy!

Our happiness was somehow clouded by the television scenes of New Orleans aftermath of Katrina. That was very painful. At the same time we realized how much blessed we were. That’s why I put my story in details in order to show how many times Lord gave us His helping hands in most critical situation of our lives.

And today, the day when our son is baptized, when we are looking back our feelings are even more grateful and appreciative of His kindness.

God bless you,

Vladimir Chachanidze

Below are some pictures of todays baptism. Nestor stood in for the Godfather Zurab, who was unable to attend: