ARCHBOLD WEATHER

Two Women Come Together To Fulfill One’s Dream

~ Archbold Buckeye First Baby Of 2022 ~



This photo could be titled “Team Jayleigh,” because it took all three of them to bring baby Jayleigh Clarissa Short, the Archbold Buckeye First Baby of the Year for 2022, into this world. Jayleigh and her mother, Jordan, are flanked by husband and dad, Arrin, and Samantha Schultz, who carried Jayleigh after Jordan had two miscarriages.– photo by David Pugh

This photo could be titled “Team Jayleigh,” because it took all three of them to bring baby Jayleigh Clarissa Short, the Archbold Buckeye First Baby of the Year for 2022, into this world. Jayleigh and her mother, Jordan, are flanked by husband and dad, Arrin, and Samantha Schultz, who carried Jayleigh after Jordan had two miscarriages.– photo by David Pugh

(Editor’s Note: This is the first of a two-part series about the Archbold Buckeye First Baby of the Year. This week, we describe the circumstances and birth; next week, we will delve more into the gestational carrier experience.)

Tiny little Jayleigh (pronounced Jay-Lee) Clarissa Short sleeps quietly in the crook of her mother’s arm, not realizing what it took to bring her into the world.

Her mother, Jordan, was told at the age of 17 that she might not be able to conceive, after a bout with endometriosis.

The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine website describes endometriosis as “a common gynecological condition affecting an estimated 2-10% of American women of childbearing age.

“Women with endometriosis develop tissue that looks and acts like endometrial tissue (the tissue that lines the uterus) outside the uterus…

“This leads to inflammation, swelling, and scarring of the normal tissue surrounding the endometriosis implants.”

The causes of endometriosis are unknown.

Jordan, (Edon ‘14), agriculture account manager at Andres O’Neil & Lowe Insurance Agency, and her husband Arrin (PHS ‘12), a farmer, live north of Pettisville but in the Archbold School District.

Jordan miscarried three sets of twins, creating what she called six “angel babies.”

In fact, Jordan said she and Arrin got to the point where they thought they would be childless.

“After so much loss and heartbreak, it gets to a point where you don’t want to push anymore, because you don’t know what’s going to happen,” Jordan said.

“We truly just put our trust in God and knew that he had a plan for us, and that his plan would be done no matter what that looked like.

“We just kind of took a year off after our last loss to just sit back, and you know, let him work in and through us.

“And that’s when Sam came into our lives.”

Sam

Sam is Samantha (Pursel) Schwartz, who shares a relative with Arrin and Jordan and lives a couple of miles down the road.

She has four children of her own, but when she heard about Arrin and Jor- dan’s situation, “I just said I would do it.”

By it, she means being a gestational carrier for Jordan and Arrin’s baby.

Biologically, Jayleigh is Arrin and Jordan’s daughter, from their embryo. The embryo that became Jayleigh was implanted inside Sam.

“She’s technically a gestational carrier,” Jordan said, not a surrogate, which refers to a woman who shares a genetic link to the child.

“Biologically, she’s not my baby at all,” Sam said.

“It’s our embryo. She carried it. So our bun, her oven,” Jordan said.

Sam said the only craving she had during the pregnancy was milk.

“I’ll never look at milk again,” Sam said.

Birthday

Sam was scheduled to have labor induced on Jan. 12; Jordan said they would have ended up at Fulton County Health Center that day anyway, because Sam was having contractions.

Jayleigh arrived at 4:59 am, Thursday, Jan. 13. She was 9 pounds, 9 ounces, and 21 1/2 inches long.

The delivery was without complications. Jordan got to hold her daughter as soon as she arrived.

Jayleigh has blue eyes, but that could change, and brown hair– sometimes light brown, sometimes dark, depending on lighting conditions, Jordan said.

Named For

Jayleigh’s middle name, Clarissa, honors Arrin’s sister, Clarissa, who died in an all-terrain vehicle accident in 2008.

Jayleigh is a combination of Arrin’s middle name, Jay, and Leigh, which is both Jordan’s and Clarissa’s middle names.

Jayleigh’s grandparents are Kory & Jessica Briner, Montpelier, and Rodney & Brenda Short, rural Fayette.

Great-grandparents are Roger & Doris Short, Archbold; Brenda & Steve Leonard, Defiance; Lyle & Barb Curry, Edon; and Dan Briner, Sarasota, Fla.

Prizes

The parents of the Archbold Buckeye First Baby of 2022 received several gifts, including:

•$20 gift card, The Home Restaurant;

•$25 gift card, The Corner Gallery;

•$50 gift card, Archbold SuperValu Foods;

•$25 gift card, Wauseon Ace;

•Fleece picnic blanket, RTEC Communications;

•$20 gift certificate, a bib and burpee set, and a baby tee-shirt, Eliza Henry;

•$25 gift card, Pennycrest Floral & More LLC;

•$25 gift card, Ken’s Furniture & Mattress Center;

•$50 gift card, Sauder Furniture Store & Outlet;

•$25 gift card, The Barn Restaurant;

•Complimentary chiropractic care for the newborn for a year, Nafziger Family Chiropractic;

•Pound of chocolate-covered nuts, Al-Meda Chocolates;

•And a year’s subscription to the Archbold Buckeye.corrected Jan. 26, 10:37 am