Definition: In this task, you will be presented with a passage and have to answer a question based on your understanding of the events inferred from the passage. Try to find the best answer that is most likely to fill in "_". Note that the URLs in the text have been replaced with [Link].
Input: (CNN) -- Asbai Ramirez had toiled for months as a U.S. soldier in Iraq. But it was his 7,000-mile trip home -- racing against the clock to his wife's bedside, for the birth of their baby -- that he described Monday as "pretty intense." The Army specialist told HLN's Vinnie Politan that the tight timetable and sheer distance led him to believe that his chances were slim of joining wife Ashleigh Ramirez in Fort Polk, Louisiana, before their child was born. "I didn't really have much hope about making it back," Ramirez said. First, there was the matter of leaving Iraq. Ramirez said Monday that his unit commanders "sent me back as soon as they could."Spc. Asbai Ramirez was in Iraq during much of his wife's pregnancyHe returned to the U.S. on his baby's due date, but had to take classesOn Thanksgiving, he flew to Louisiana then rushed to the hospitalRamirez says he got there about 30 minutes before his son was born 
 Question:Ramirez said that, throughout the process, he'd been in regular contact with _.

Ashleigh Ramirez