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
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 5th 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.
”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.
