Pretty in Pink: Astronaut Family Shows Off New Daughter

HOUSTON, Dec. 8, 2009 — -- Rebecca and Randy Bresnik already have everything they want for Christmas: a healthy baby girl, Abigail Mae, and 3-year-old Wyatt, whom they adopted from an orphanage in the Ukraine a year ago. Wyatt told his mom he wanted a baby sister for Christmas and he got his wish. Rebecca smiles when Randy asks her what she wants. "What more could I ask for? This has been such a miracle."

A miracle indeed, even when she keeps everyone in the house awake all night long.

Abigail was born while her astronaut father, Randy, was high above Earth on his first space flight, riding the space shuttle Atlantis to the International Space Station. The timing of Abigail's birth coincided with a mission Randy had spent a year training to fly.

The timing was complicated, but the Bresniks are a military family and they say they're well aware many families are separated for months and years. What was stunning to them was the attention paid to Abigail's birth.

Rebecca was in labor for almost two days, one of those when Randy was out on his first spacewalk. She jokes about a newspaper headline her father in-law showed her after the mission which read "Astronaut labors, wife does not."

Mom in Labor, Dad on Spacewalk

She laughs now, but she says two days of labor were, well, hard. Abigail was born Saturday, Nov. 21, just after 11 p.m. CST. Her dad was asleep, after putting in a long day on a spacewalk, but he got the good news when he woke up, and had the pleasure of announcing his daughter's birth to flight controllers in Mission Control. She weighed in at 6 pounds and 13 ounces, and was 21 inches long with ten fingers and ten toes. Video was transmitted up to the new dad in orbit.

"She is as beautiful as her mom, and I hope as smart, too, he told ABC News during the mission.

When Bresnik first saw his daughter, he says she took his breath away. "You wish everyone on Earth could see the Earth from space, but they need to know this, touching your baby is even more inspiring, and it is here on Earth, and we should cherish this time because it is the most amazing experience."

Pretty in Pink: Baby Born While Astronaut Father (Far) Away

This isn't the first time an astronaut has been in space for the birth of his baby, and it certainly won't be the last. Astronauts regularly pull a six-month stint on the International Space Station, and if NASA succeeds in sending a manned mission to Mars, astronaut families could be apart for years at a time.

The Bresniks say it has been a tad unsettling to go public with their story, but having gone through years when they were told they couldn't have children, they believe they can give hope to other families. "If one family sees our story and chooses to adopt, that is one more child who now has a family, and if there is a family who has struggled to get pregnant, we want to give them hope; if it can happen to us, when there was more than a one in 1 million shot that we could get pregnant, it could happen to others."

The morning after Abigail was born, Mission Control played Bob Carlisle's song "Butterfly Kisses," to wake up new dad Randy Bresnik. Rebecca sent up a CD of the song on Atlantis. She said she hopes Abigail will play it for the first dance with her father at her wedding.