Did you ever figure this out? We're experiencing the same thing with ArcGIS Desktop 10.2 and an SDE 10 GDB. It seems to only occur over a slower network connection.
Angela,
Can you please try a OLEDB connection and check whether that gives you the same issue.
Adding OLE DB connections to databases:
http://resources.arcgis.com/en/help/main/10.2/index.html#//006600000452000000