"Congratulations, you're gonna to be a Dad!"
Those were the words I remember playing out in my
head over and over again the morning of October 16th, a Thursday, sometime
around 1 o'clock in the morning. They were the words I was replaying in
my mind as I sat there and watched Mary, laid up in a
birthing bed on the labor and delivery floor, fight back tears of pain and
terror as each contraction seemed to take her breath away. I tried to
bring myself back mentally to the happy state I was in when I was informed of
that news but soon realized that she needed me at her bedside during what was
to be the most distressing event we would go through so far in our nearly 11
years of marriage. On the monitor, baby
Z’s heart (whose name hadn’t yet been decided…it was a cross between Gabriella
and Adrianna) thumped away like a beating drum.
150 beats per minute, solid as a rock like it had always been every time
we were able to have a listen to her.
She was full of energy, as evidenced by the constant blast of noise we
would hear through speaker which was her actually flipping around. A suite of Labor and Delivery doctors and
nurses were quickly flooding into the room and at some point, one of them did a
final exam to check where Mary was. I
will never forget the look she gave us when she looked up and said
“You’re now 9 cm and fully effaced”
What the
hell does that
mean?
I was only the better part of
halfway through
What to Expect when
Expecting, finally starting to buy fun clothes I would one day put our
daughter in and just starting to talk to Mary’s friends about something to the
tune of a baby shower (even though she always said she didn’t want one
J
)
Does that mean the baby turned over to
get comfortable?
Did she need
something?
Was she in distress?
“Thump thump thump…”
There she was still clear as day on the monitor…if I’d didn’t know any
better I would say she didn’t even know what was going on.
No, it wasn’t until the Doctor turned around
and barked at the Nurse to get the NICU team engaged.
Sometime shortly thereafter we decided she
would be Gabriella Cheryl and I ran out at 4 a.m. to call our parents, letting
them know to get there as Mary was in labor.
We would soon learn what that little room attached to a delivery room at
Hartford Hospital is used for.
I will
never forget looking at Mary and seeing something I had never seen before,
which was sheer terror.
My head was pounding :
"It’s not her
f***ing time yet!
She’s only 26
weeks!
Christ what does she even look
like?"
I knew what Mary needed was a
confident partner at that time when everyone started suiting up and the entire
room was transformed into a sterile environment…blue sheets draped everywhere,
masks and gloves donned and an array of surgical equipment.
And then where was me…I believe still wearing
a Red Sox shirt.
The entire process didn’t
take long…Mary was an absolute rockstar maintaining composure through adversity
and pushed out our little baby out into the world pretty quickly (easy for me to say).
When she finally appeared, she made a loud
screech…that sound every new parent wants to hear.
There was no “congratulations” from anyone,
there was no cutting of the cord by dad and there sure as hell wasn’t any time for
Mary to hold her daughter.
Gabriella was
immediately whisked into that little room I mentioned where the NICU team was standing by…probably
10 of them; nurses, APRN’s, respiratory therapists and doctors.
The room was cramped and loud.
They were racing against the clock since
Gabby was only 26 weeks, 2.2 lbs. and didn’t get the benefit of surfactant,
a steroid administered to mothers in labor with extremely premature babies to open up baby's lungs.
Once they stabilized her and got her into her
incubator, which was to be her home for the next few months they wheeled her
out to Mary’s bedside.
She was sobbing,
but screaming at me to go with the team since there were so many decisions that
needed to be made.
I got my first real
look at my daughter when we were racing down the halls to the elevator, headed
down to the 5
th floor which is where the CCMC NICU is housed.
She was tiny, probably the size of a Nerf
football.
Her incubator buzzed and
beeped and the team regimented everything that was going on.
At her head was a respiratory therapist
squeezing the oxygen bag confidently and methodically, giving Gabby the air
she needed to breathe.
The most out of
body experience of it all was once we crammed into the elevator to go
down.
It was no more than a 20 second
ride but it seemed like an hour.
Once we got to the NICU she
was raced to what would be her home for the next 92 days, bed space 6.
I was confronted by who would be her primary
doctor and I will never forget what he said to be:
”I know there’s a lot going on right now but I need you to focus on me for
the next 5 minutes, then I will explain everything we’re doing to your daughter”
I had to sign waivers, consent forms and releases for everything from donor
milk to IV lines.
My head was
spinning.
Everything was going a million
miles an hour.
I scribbled my name on
everything because she needed it all…and quick.
I didn’t care if my insurance would kick back all of this, didn’t care
how much anything was going to cost and for damn sure didn’t want to waste any
time.
I remember signing her name for
the first time…”Gabriella”…and signing my name with the title “Father”.
I wanted to know how she was doing but I wasn’t
allowed to go to her bedside.
She wasn’t
stable.
She needed help breathing.
I needed Mary.
Wait, where’s Mary?
Holy shit she just gave birth and I haven’t
even been able to hug her or see if she was ok.
She was still upstairs.
I was
like a fish out of water.
That was the first hour of
life for Gabriella, as seen through the eyes of her Dad.
Of course, once everything settled down (“settled
down” being a term used loosely) I ran back to Mary and wheeled her down to see
her daughter and our parents.
We hugged,
kissed, I told her Gabriella was beautiful and waiting to see her.
There are few things as powerful as seeing
your wife, a new mother, see her child through the clear plastic walls of an
incubator.
It was then that I was
finally able to remember those words “You’re going to be a Dad” and smile for
the first time.
Everything was going to
be ok.
