14 years later

My oldest daughter's upcoming birthday reminds me of the uncertain circumstances of her arrival

Jun 07, 2024

Adrenaline and anticipation are a fickle little combination. You’re cruising on the first because of the second when your spouse/partner is in labor, and then the first gets a turbo boost when they wheel your spouse into the nearby small operating room because the doctor says they don’t have time to get down the hall to the big OR (about 20 feet away).

My oldest daughter was delivered by emergency C-section because of a decisive obstetrician and nursing team. In these instances, you’re supposed to bring more people home than you brought to the hospital. I inhabited a space of uncertainty for about 20 minutes when I knew nothing…when grief and loss and mourning and all of their cousins were on the elevator at the hospital waiting to see if they needed to stop on the fifth-floor labor and delivery unit at St. Joseph’s Hospital Health Center in Syracuse.

The following is something I wrote when my oldest, Layla, turned two. On Tuesday (June 11), she will turn 14. I’m older, wiser, and grayer, but very little has changed in 12 years. Elmo is now Taylor Swift, her milk Thermos is now a Stanley...you get the picture.

I’ve done some light editing to fix a few typos and added some footnotes because I love adding footnotes to my own work.

Joe Scarborough, former Congressman and current host of MSNBC‘s Morning Joe program, recently told a story of his prematurely born son. He talked about fear, the odds of living, and the baby being wrapped in Saran Wrap to keep it warm. He recalls that about 20 minutes after the doctors told him that it was a 50/50 shot of his son living, a nurse came out and said that the child would be fine. It seems that the baby had ripped out its tubes and wires, and was screaming and fighting with the nurses. She said that he was a fighter and that he was going to keep on fighting.

I think of this story now when I watch my daughter. I say, “Stop,” and she looks at me, smiles and takes off. Or when I see her try to pick up two snack cups and her steel milk Thermos, while already carrying Elmo and Minnie Mouse dolls. Or when she tries to put her socks on without stretching the elastic wide enough. She doesn’t stop. She keeps pushing. No resignation. No reticence. No fear (well, except when a motorcycle passes or a lawnmower is running nearby). She keeps fighting. Fighting us. Fighting elastic. Fighting logic and reason. Fighting gravity.

2010-06-12 at 12-55-46 — *The first official photo of Layla*

It was touch and go on the morning of June 11, 2010. Labor started around 11 p.m. the previous evening and resulted in a false alarm (no dilation) visit to the hospital at 2 a.m.1 Six hours later, my wife was in intense pain and we were shipped directly to delivery to have all of the requisite monitors and wires attached.

Fetal heart monitors fire an alarm when the baby’s heart spends too much time below 100 beats per minute. Right around the time that the pain medication was going to be administered, the alarm sounded. The fetal heart rate had dropped to 75 beats. The doctor and charge nurse arrived and poked at my wife’s stomach, which seemed to straighten things out. About a minute later, the alarm sounded again and 75 was flashing on the little screen. A swarm of nurses came in, shuffling me to a corner of the room. They did some stuff to get the heart rate back to 90.

It was only for a few seconds though. The next dive was at a number below 75 that I never caught. At this point, I could not hear specifics of the situation over the panic-fueled ringing in my ears.

I didn’t think anything about it at the time. The doctor told me that I would be staying in this room, as my wife was going to receive a general anesthetic. My wife, on her gurney, was being wheeled out to the “small” operating room across the hall, when I heard someone say that the “big room” was ready. The severity of the situation hit me sometime later, as I only subconsciously heard Dr. Kavety2 say, “We don’t have enough time to get there.” (For reference, the “big room” was about 20 further down the hall.)

Hmm.

So, I sent a couple of text messages to people telling them to get to the hospital.

***

Drew Magary, formerly of Deadspin and now of Defector, once wrote:

I began to fear for my wife’s life, going over all the potential possibilities of what would come home:
1. Wife and kid
2. Wife and no kid
3. Kid and no wife
4. No kid and no wife
I tried to stop pondering it but I couldn’t. I thought about what would happen if the dreaded fourth option came to pass.

2010-06-12 at 14-12-44 — *My favorite early photo of Layla*

And there I was rolling the same dice. If there was a fear in my life (besides bridges, tunnels and maggots) it was that the doctor would tell me that something was wrong.

A nurse asked if I heard “that.” I replied that I could only hear the aforementioned ringing in my ears. The nurse walked me into the hall and asked me if I could hear crying. I nodded and was told that the screaming belonged to my baby and that, at 10:51 a.m., she had been pulled out. A few minutes later, the charge nurse (who’s daughter was one my wife’s students…como se dice “awkward?”) gave me an update and, soon after that, brought the baby in. As I write this, I’m still amazed at this entire process.

I’m not going to lie…it wasn’t love at first sight. I still wasn’t feeling anything. All I knew is that beneath the wad of blankets was a wriggling body that was my daughter. It was a feeling of shellshock that I cannot explain.

2011-06-11 at 12-03-13 — *The official one-year-old photo.*

My wife has been at my side for every event of the past 17 years3. Whether it was job offers and awards, marriage, bad days at work or death, we’ve been together. For the first time in what seemed like ever, she wasn’t there. I could have said, “You have to see this” or “Can you believe this?” but it would have been to the four walls in the room. Here we were together, The Baby and I, and I had no one to be excited with. Instead, The Baby and I talked. Actually, I rambled. It was my coping mechanism; I would nervously stream every thought in my head as it soothed me4.

I held The Baby for about the first two hours, as my wife shook off the anesthesia and received pain medicine. It was not until past Noon that The Baby had a name, and another hour or so after that before anyone but the doctor knew what that name was5.

Everyone was alive. Everyone was healthy. And we had a name: Layla Anne (the former for the Eric Clapton/Derek And The Dominoes song, the latter after my mother-in-law).

Layla fought back for the first time, and she won.

Four years later, she’s still winning. I just wish she would tell me what game we are playing and what the rules are6.

My wife and daughter from December 2023.

Final thoughts on finality

You didn’t ask
To be strong.
To be forced
To figure out
How to live
After they died
It may even feel
Like a punishment.
But they are watching.
They love seeing you laugh.
And hearing you tell their story.
I know breathing without them hurts.
Some days have more tears than smiles.
But oh how they love watching your love.

— Loving the Gone, Sara Rian

14 years later

My oldest daughter's upcoming birthday reminds me of the uncertain circumstances of her arrival

Final thoughts on finality

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