I was reading through some older blog posts and came across one that certainly isn’t my best writing piece, but an unfiltered, unembellished dump of overwhelming feelings I experienced the day my daughter was born.  It’s been almost two years since that day, but I vividly remember the overload of emotion I was feeling while I typed as fast as I could, fearing I’d forget something if I slowed.

To say our lives have changed since that emotional day is the epitome of the word “understatement”.  The way a child becomes the center of everything is unexplainable; to know is to experience.

Everyone has heard the cliché “They grow up so fast”.  We’ve already started planning her second birthday party, and I can honestly say that the last two years have flown by faster than I could have ever imagined.

Here’s my original blog post from May 25, 2008, three days after Mackenzie was born:

I’m such a proud father, I’ve probably sent something similar to this blog to everyone in the world… but Mackenzie entered the world on Thursday, May 22nd, at 11:40 am. She weighed in at 6 pounds, 10.3 ounces, and was 19″ in length. Sarah was only 35 weeks along in the pregnancy, but given her compromised airway situation, we kind of expected an early delivery via cesarean right from the start.

The whirlwind began on Tuesday, when Sarah had an amnio done to get some insight into Mackenzie’s lung development progress. Lung immaturity is one of the most common ailment of premature births, and her doctors wanted to take extra precautions because she was only 35 weeks into the pregnancy as opposed to a full-term 40 weeks. Her dad was able to go to that appointment with her, which is good, because I’m not much help if I’m passed out on the floor after eyeballing a 7″ needle with Sarah’s uterus as its primary target. She ended up doing fine with that procedure, and doc shared that we should hear something the following morning.

We did hear from him, as promised. Unfortunately the preliminary analysis gave the impression that her lungs weren’t quite ready yet. He said that those results weren’t exhaustive – more detailed results would be in later, but he eluded that it most likely was a no-go. Sarah was disappointed, as was I. I ran around at work to different meetings to determine the best way to utilize my next few days of work, seeing as I wasn’t going to start my vacation the following day as expected… My cell rang in the middle of one of these said meetings, where I had already made aggressive commitments to fill the next week of work. The conversation went a little something like this:

Me: “Hey… sorry I missed your call, I’m in the middle of a meeting. Is everything OK?”

Sarah: “Yeah, everything is fine… but guess what?! We’re going to have a baby tomorrow!”

Me: “Um…. Holy crap?”

Sarah: “Yeah, doc called and said that the other tests came back and gave a strong indication that the baby’s lungs are OK. We have to be at the hospital at 8:30am tomorrow.”

Me: [Laughing with excitement] “That’s fucking awesome, I can’t believe it!!!!! I gotta run back into this meeting and tell everyone that they get to decide what they want me to do in the next 2 hours before I’m out for a few weeks…. [chuckling again] I’ll call you back in a little bit”

… fast-forward to pre-op on Thursday morning …

Things were moving along swiftly, but not overly-so. The staff here at Winnie Palmer is nothing short of amazing. Incredibly efficient, good at what they do, and still extremely personable and caring. All of them. Consistently.

Time for the epidural. God damn that’s a big thick needle. Good thing they’re sticking it in a place without many nerves, like the base of the spine. Yeah, that’s a little unnerving (pun intended). The anesthesiologist mentions that they let him “teach this stuff,” so I guess he’s a bit experienced. In goes the epidural, and Sarah didn’t feel much discomfort. The I.V. actually hurt worse because she was dehydrated so they had to put it in her hand. She did get a little woozy, and it was sort of amusing to me that her toes were involuntarily moving as they inserted the tube, but they gave her some oxygen and laid her back down – that helped a lot.

Once the happy meds kicked in, they catheterized her . Between about boob-level and shin-level, she was feelin’ nothin’ but love. The ‘rest of her’ was completely awake and alert. I was given full scrubs to wear, then they whisked her away to the operating room. I sort of freaked out at that point, because I was assured I wouldn’t have to leave her side until after the surgery was complete… but others noticed my uneasiness, and assured me that I would be called in just as soon as they did a little prep-work.

The surgery itself was very calculated, as I’d guess most surgeries are. I sat in a chair by Sarah’s head and held her hand. Our view of the business-end of the work was obscured by a half-curtain that was affixed to Sarah just above her chest. At this point, my mind was racing with so many thoughts that I didn’t have much time to think about the surgeons carving a nice smiley-faced exit portal below her belly. There was a LOT going on, but it was just organized enough to not appear chaotic. I truly trusted the surgical team, which definitely helped me focus on talking to Sarah instead of freezing in a social daze from “interference overload.”

Sarah and I exchanged small-talk: mostly about the surreality of the situation… We were becoming parents, right then and there. We went in to the O.R. as two, coming out as three.

“They’re about to make the incision in your uterus, it will only be about 5-10 minutes until your baby is here, ” a surgeon mentions to us.

We recognized the voice of our OB grunting and laboring (again with the pun), and Sarah’s upper body started to sway…. We later learned that this was due to the surgeon being elbow-deep in the uterus, physically pulling the baby from the womb. Even though I was told I wouldn’t be allowed to photograph any part of the actual surgery, the doctor standing beside us told me that I could stand up over the curtain and snap a pic if I so desired. Normally, that’d be a big ole “hell no” for me, but being caught in the moment, I flicked the power button on the camera, stood up, and snapped two pictures. It just so happened that the first picture captured the moment the surgeon had our daughter free from mom, but still connected by the umbilical cord. The next picture, as fate would have it, was just after the cord was cut. Incredibly graphic photos, but at the same time, completely priceless.

The anxiously awaited sound of our newborns first cry echoed through the room, immediately triggering emotions for both Sarah and I – this sound being innately representative of her successful arrival. I stood paralyzed, half standing, staring at our child, now surrounded by an orchestrated team of specialists all performing their specific duties to analyze baby’s condition and needs. I was ceremoniously invited to the scale to capture the weighing moment. “6 10.3″ it read – 6 pounds, 10.3 ounces. That’s a full-term baby weight. Definitely good news. As long as they would allow me to keep taking photos, I intended to do just that.

“Come over here, Dad. Lean over your new baby as far as you can. We’ve just taken her footprints, and we’re going to stamp the front of your scrubs with the rest of the ink.” I leaned in and watched in amazement as the nurse lifted Mackenzie’s little legs and pressed her feet against my chest. I now had two little footprints on the front of my gown, and I couldn’t have been more proud.

As the staff finished swaddling and began moving toward mom, I sat in the chair next to her and stared as they placed our little girl onto Sarah’s chest, meeting each other for the first time in the real world – this time as two instead of one. That moment – watching Sarah soothe Mackenzie, the three of us together – was the most amazing moment of my entire life. Over and over I’ve been told that the feelings I’ll experience are unimaginable. It was about this time that it was really sinking in that these people could not have been more right. We arrived this morning as two, and within a few hours, two became three.

One of the nursing staff took my camera and captured a few pictures of the three of us that will no doubt be favorites of ours for a long, long time. Shortly thereafter, Sarah and I realized that the tension around us was escalating. The pace of the surgeon, the urgency of his voice, the attention of the staff immediately turning to him awaiting his next request.

“What’s going on,” I asked.

“Sarah’s uterus is bleeding more than expected. They’re having a bit of trouble getting it under control. Here Sarah, place these tablets in your cheek. Don’t chew them, just let them dissolve,” a nurse said in a calm but matter-of-fact voice.

“Ok, dad. Time to follow your daughter to the transition nursery. Mom will be fine,” they told me.

My eyes were wide as saucers now, torn between following Mackenzie and staying with Sarah. I had been warned about this feeling, so I made sure Sarah and I discussed it before the surgery was scheduled. I was given clear instructions that I am to follow the baby unless Sarah’s life was in critical danger. I walked with the neonatal staff, alongside the bassinet, in total and complete disbelief, staring at this delicate little person who Sarah and I were both solely responsible for creating and now also solely responsible for care and upbringing. To say I was “lost in the moment” wouldn’t quite do it justice. I felt as though I were entranced, with Mackenzie taking absolutely all of my attention. The staff was surely accustomed to this, as they were giving me basic direction as it were completely routine that my world at this moment consisted solely of the person in the bassinet I was following.

“Mr. Lyna, this is our floor. As soon as you’re comfortable walking again, go ahead and step out of the elevator so we can continue our trek,” they said with completely benign intent.

“Oh, man, I didn’t even realize we were in an elevator.”

“That’s understandable, big guy” they responded, smiling.

Shortly after reaching the nursery, they explained a ton of stuff to me – about 10% of which I knew I would retain, at the most: How to navigate the maze out of the nursery to the elevators, what floor we were on with Mackenzie, what floor Sarah was on, how long until I could see both again. What I did manage to catch was that now was the time to go downstairs to let our family know, make all the phone calls, and all that jazz. I remember them saying I could bring family up to see the baby one at a time in about 20 minutes.

Still dressed in full scrubs, I reached the first floor where everyone was waiting for the news… I was shaking uncontrollably, half-coherently scanning the large room for familiar faces. As I walked toward them, all I could do was smile and point my trembling finger at the tiny footprints on my gown. “She’s here,” eventually escaped my lips as I bear-hugged Sarah’s mom, dad and brother. “Mackenzie is here!”

Once I regained some sense of self-awareness, we visited the baby and I was finally able to head up to see Sarah in recovery. She was awake and coherent, and told me that they were able to finally get the bleeding under control, just in the nick of time, she said, because the surgeons were debating preforming a blood transfusion if she lost much more blood. The pain meds were still in her system, but due to the excessive bleeding, they had to give her drugs to specifically induce contractions to help her incisions clot. Unfortunately, the pain meds did nothing to help with that pain, and I could tell just by looking at her that the pain was going to get much worse before it got better. Oh how right I was – when they wheeled her from recovery up into her room, she was already crying and writhing in pain. Not long after parking the bed in the room, Aly and Titia, two of our close friends, made a surprise visit. Sarah was nearly passing out from the pain, and with nurses all around her bed, she just couldn’t have visitors at the moment. Sarah’s parents had just walked into the room, so I walked into the lobby to talk to our friends and walk them down to see the baby.

Boy, I’m glad they showed up when they did. The three of us jovially ventured down to the transition nursery – Sarah was in lots of pain, but otherwise stable – and we were going to see Mackenzie! Just before the front desk buzzed us in, the receptionist said “Wait just a minute… your baby isn’t in transition anymore. They’ve admitted her.”

“What does that mean?”

“She’s having trouble breathing on her own. They’ve moved her to NICU.”

My face must have immediately turned pale – Aly and Titia looked at me with expressions of great concern. Aly walked back to NICU with me first, just as they were getting ready to wheel Mackenzie into intensive care. It was really good to have my close friends there with me, because the sight of my daughter with IV’s and tubes in her nose was just too much for me to handle. After comforting me for a bit, Aly went out to send Titia in. How could I forget – she’s a neonatal nurse practitioner – this is what she does for a living. Titia came back and assessed Mackenzie’s vitals…. after learning of Titia’s credentials, they readily engaged in medical-speak about Mackenzie’s condition. Titia put her arm around me, and assured me that this was completely normal for a 35-week baby. That really calmed me quite a bit. Two social workers were by my side by that time, letting me know that they’ve been assigned to Mackenzie, Sarah and I, as was customary for any baby admitted into the NICU. They also offered some words of encouragement, and let me know that they’d be up to Sarah’s room shortly to educate us on their services.

It’s now Sunday afternoon. Sarah is feeling much better, her incision is healing well, and the bleeding has stopped. She’s still in a bit of pain when it gets closer to a new dose of happy, but she says it’s about a “4″ on a scale of 1 to 10… much better than the “9″ she gave after the surgery. The doctor is planning on releasing her tomorrow afternoon.

Mackenzie is doing very, very well. She’s awake and alert, she’s completely off of oxygen, and Sarah and I have been taking turns feeding her every few hours. All of the tubes had been removed for a while – unfortunately they had to reinsert the feeding tube because she was exhibiting some digestion difficulties, but it’s very close to being taken out again. They’ve put her on a 7-day antibiotic regimen, so it’s NICU policy not to release her until that’s complete – very disappointing for both Sarah and I, but we both agree that it’s better to have her here just in case something unexpected comes up.

It’s been an absolute 3-day whirlwind thus far, but it’s calmed down significantly. We just can’t wait to have Mackenzie home with us.  Sarah has been able to produce enough milk to completely replace the formula they were feeding the baby.  Mackenzie’s feeding tube is most likely going to be taken out because she’s been eating well, as long as we can keep her awake enough.  She’s stubborn, just like her mom.  Sarah is being discharged tomorrow (Monday), and it’s just killing us that we’re not going to be able to bring baby home with us, but we’ll be here a lot to see her, feed her, and give her lots of love.

Ultimately we just want what’s best for her.

… and she already has daddy completely wrapped around her little finger.  This is going to be one spoiled little girl.