Typical of Los Angeles the road leading to the hospital was clogged with traffic, and as I sat in a sea of motionless cars I started to cry uncontrollably. This was very awkward, and from the corner of my eyes I could see the people in the cars to my left and right gawking at me.

I switched on my CD player in hopes of hearing a frivolous song that might help me pull things together, but what came on was anything but a fun diversion. It was “The Way,” a gentle song by Neil Young that features a children’s choir. Soon my car was filled with the angelic voices of children singing:

“The way, we know the way. We’ve seen the way
We’ll show the way
To get you back home
To the peace where you belong…”

As I listened to the children’s choir sing this refrain I imagined that they were the voices of all the babies who had ever died in the NICU, and that they were singing to Maddie that they could show her the way to peace - away from all the pain that she was in. This, as you can imagine, made me cry even more.

But then it occurred to me that maybe what I was hearing wasn’t the voice of the children who had died, but the children who had survived, and that they were singing to Maddie that they knew the way to health - the way for her to get back home with Heather and me. I clung to this second interpretation as traffic finally started to move.

When I walked into the NICU Maddie’s isolette was once again surrounded by doctors and nurses. Remembering Dr. Walker’s proximity test, I knew this wasn’t good. I looked to her blue number…it read only 44. The amount of oxygen in Maddie’s body was dangerously low. A nurse soon told me to go to the waiting room and that they would come give me an update when they had one.

In the waiting room I opened a book about babies that Heather had given me and saw that it had a chapter entitled: “Coping with Loss.” With a heavy heart I turned to that chapter and began to read.

After about fifteen minutes I got up and walked down to the NICU because I couldn’t wait for an update any longer. Once there I saw that even more doctors and nurses surrounded Maddie’s isolette, and that her blue number was now at an inconceivably low 11. I knew then that my daughter was going to die.

I turned and left to go call Heather. On my way to do so I ran into the cardiologist I hadn’t seen since the first night.

“I have good news,” he said. “That serious heart problem I thought your daughter had? It turns out she doesn’t have it. We got a better x-ray yesterday and saw that her heart is just fine.”

I mumbled a “thank you,” and shuffled away. I couldn’t believe there was amazing news about Maddie’s heart right when it appeared she was about to die.

Heather, after hearing about Maddie’s condition, told me that she was going to check out of the hospital against doctor’s orders once again and come to the NICU. I then went upstairs to wait.

My parents soon arrived and found me sitting in the chairs by the elevator practically comatose. I started to babble about arranging a funeral for Maddie, but they told me not to discuss that yet…to be hopeful. I nodded and stared into the distance. I just wanted Heather to arrive so badly.

Eventually the elevator doors opened and Heather walked out. Despite having been on bed rest for months, and mere hours after having major surgery, she had walked the long way from the parking lot to the NICU because she wasn’t about to waste time waiting for a wheelchair. I jumped up and took her hand.

Together we walked into the NICU. As we got closer to Maddie’s isolette I saw it was no longer surrounded by doctors and nurses. I initially feared the worst until I saw Maddie still laid in the isolette. I then looked to her blue number – it was in the nineties. I couldn’t believe it.

Heather and I hurried over and looked in at our baby. Her tiny chest rose and fell. She was very much alive.

The doctors, it turned out, had once again managed to release the air constricting Maddie’s lungs at the last moment, and from then on Maddie was on the road to recovery. There would be setbacks along the way, but nothing like the first few days. Finally, sixty-eight days after she arrived at UCLA, Maddie was on the way home.

 
We give thanks every day for the amazing work of the NICU’s doctors and nurses, and for having an incredibly strong daughter who just wouldn’t give up.

A few hours after all of the drama with Maddie almost dying had passed she was still stable. I’d spent most of the time since her recovery at her side looking in at her tiny little body under the glass. I felt such love for her. She just wouldn’t give up.

Eventually I decided to go downstairs to the cafeteria with my parents to get some food while Kirk and Kyle left to see Heather who was still at the hospital where Maddie was born. Heather, it turned out, had received a call from Kirk saying that Maddie had recovered just as she was about to sign the discharge papers. She wisely decided to stay and continue recovering from her C-section upon hearing this, but made me promise that if anything bad was to happen again I would tell her immediately.

After dinner I went back upstairs to check on Maddie. The calm that I had been feeling immediately disappeared. More people than ever before were now surrounding her isolette, and her vital numbers were staggeringly low. A previously mild mannered nurse suddenly sprinted away from Maddie with desperation in her eyes and nearly knocked me over as she barreled into a back room.

I returned to the waiting room and told my parents that things had once again taken a turn for the worse. Before too long “Wayne” came in to tell me that Maddie had blown more pneumos, and was once again leaking air into her chest cavity which was stopping her from breathing.

“Premature babies often have problems with this,” he said. “Their lungs simply aren’t strong enough to hold the air they inhale. We will do our best to release the air that escapes from her lungs by sticking tubes into her sides, but if she is to survive she will to have to heal quickly and become strong enough not to keep blowing these pneumos.”

For the next few hours I would check on Maddie every few minutes. Some visits found Maddie resting in her isolette, seemingly peaceful, while others again found a frantic team of doctors and nurses working to remove air from her chest. The doctors and nurses were tireless in all of this. “Wayne,” in fact, stayed on his feet caring for Maddie for thirty-two hours straight a nurse later told me.

It became clear at this point that, despite dreading having to do so, it was time to call Heather. Linda, Heather’s mother, picked up the phone and I told her what was happening. Linda immediately left Heather’s room and we had a debate about whether Heather should be told what was going on since she would definitely check out of the hospital against doctors orders this time, and we weren’t sure if that would be the best thing considering that she had just had major surgery a day prior. In the end we decided that we had to tell her…I’d given her my word to do so…and so, while Linda went off to start the process of getting Heather discharged, Kyle sat with Heather and gently told her that her little girl was once again in danger of losing her life.

Meanwhile, at UCLA, I went back into the NICU to check on Maddie and asked a nurse how Maddie was doing. The nurse’s face went white before, in a frightened whisper, she said, “We are doing the best that we can.” I nodded and started to tell them that Heather had checked out of her hospital and was on her way over, but ended up breaking down as I did so. The nurses lead me back to the waiting room.

Twenty minutes or so later I got a call that Heather and her mother had arrived, so Kyle and I went down to direct them inside. We found a wheelchair for Heather and pushed her up to the NICU to see Maddie.

Heather’s mood was very serene…this likely had a lot to do with the drugs she was under for pain…but it probably was for the best considering what she was about to see. Heather sat at Maddie’s side for the next hour and spoke quietly to her. It was a relief to know that…no matter what eventually happened…Heather finally was able to be with her daughter.

Later that night Linda and I brought Heather home, but it quickly became clear she was going to need to return to the hospital as her pain medication was wearing off and she was in more pain every moment. We called our obstetrician who made a call to get Heather re-admitted. Linda then took Heather back to first hospital. I was ready to go with them, but both she and Linda told me to stay and get some rest so I could return to Maddie’s side as soon as possible.

I got into bed and tried to sleep but it was hard. Heather was gone, as was Rigby (who had gone home with Heather’s Dad so we had one less thing to worry about), and I was alone with nothing but my thoughts.

After a night of restless sleep dawn finally broke and I called the NICU. I was immediately put on hold for a long while which made me nervous. Eventually Maddie’s nurse came on the line and told me that Maddie was not doing well. The respirator that was breathing for Maddie kept breaking holes (or popping pneumos) in her lungs, and, as a result the nurses had to hand pump her lungs all night. This stopped Maddie from popping pneumos, but exhausted her nurses who had literally stood on their feet their entire twelve hour shift, squeezing air into her lungs thirty times a minute.

Laurie, Maddie’s head nurse, told me that they could only do this so long. Maddie’s lungs, if she was to survive, were going to have to grow strong enough to sustain being on the respirator and fast otherwise she wasn’t going to make it. Today, she said, was a make or break day for Maddie.

To be concluded in PART SEVEN when Maddie’s fate is decided.

In my car on the way over to the NICU I called Heather and related what I had been told in as calm a voice as possible. The reality was, however, that I was scared out of my mind. It was the kind of fear where you don’t cry or scream, you just feel cold and can’t stop shaking. Once I was off the phone with Heather (who told me her mother was on the way), I called my parents and told them what was happening. They said they would get to UCLA as quickly as possible. By this time I had parked my car and was running into the hospital.

My heart sank upon walking through the doors of the NICU. Alarms on Maddie’s monitors were blaring, her blue number (tracking her blood/oxygen level that should have been 90+) was down in the forties, and a crew of nurses and doctors were gathered around her isolette. I watched as they barked orders at each other and worked on her little body, but the blue number kept falling. When it tumbled into the 30s tears welled in my eyes, and I turned and hurried out as I couldn’t keep tears from falling. A nurse ran after me and said, “Papa!” I turned and she handed me a box of tissue.

A couple moments later Dr. Walker came out of the NICU and asked me if I’d like some privacy. I nodded, and she lead me to a room in the back normally used, it appeared, for viewing videotapes. Dr. Walker took a seat across from me and said that she understood that what I was going through had to be incredibly hard, especially with my wife still at the other hospital. She then asked me if I had anyone who could come be with me. I told her that my parents and in-laws were on the way. She nodded and stared into the distance.

“I’d like to be able to tell you that Madeline is going to pull through,” she finally said. “But I can’t say that right now. She is very, very sick, and while we are trying our best for her I want you to be aware of the possibilities. Do you understand?”

I nodded.

She then added, “If you would like to speak with the hospital Chaplain now would be a good time to call him.” I told her that I wasn’t interested in that right then and just wanted them to continue focusing on Maddie. She nodded and said she would give me a little privacy.

I called Linda’s cell phone to see if they were almost here, since I knew they would arrive before my parents, and she told me that Heather’s Dad, Kirk, and her brother, Kyle, were on their way but that she had decided to stay with Heather. That made sense in light of what might happen. I then sat in the videotape room for a while trying to compose myself. Finally, my cell phone rang. It was my parents calling to find out where I was as they had arrived.

I went into the waiting room and found my parents, as well as Kirk and Kyle. I tried to remain composed as I told them what was happening, but found it very hard to do so. In addition to being afraid of losing my baby, the thought that Madeline might die before Heather got a chance to see her was sickening. It only took a second of seeing all of my family members before I started crying. I know, I know. Some guys will think I’m a wimp, but all I can say is I would gladly trade getting sacked by Lawrence Taylor in his prime for having to watch my tiny, little baby die in front of my eyes.

After explaining everything I took a seat and looked around the room. Kyle was looking down at floor, Kirk was staring into the distance, and my parents seemed stunned. My mother, in fact, was wringing her hands, and I remember thinking, “Wow. She is wringing her hands.” I had heard that term plenty of times, but never actually seen someone wring their hands live and in person. Eventually, after what seemed like hours, but must have been minutes, one of the fellows came in to speak with us.

The fellow’s name escapes me, but Heather later met him and dubbed him “Wayne,” as he sort of looked like Fred Savage’s brother on “The Wonder Years”. Anyway, Wayne looked white as can be, and, despite doing a great job, sort of looked like he was about to puke as he sat across from me and said that things had gotten worse than when Dr. Walker had talked to me previously.

“Worse?” I thought. “Worse than when she told me Maddie was probably going to die?”

He then asked if we wanted to have the hospital’s chaplain come up to advise us, and if we did we really needed to say so now. My Mom said, “Yes, bring him up here!” but for a number of reasons, the strongest of which was that I didn’t want to give the doctors and nurses the idea that we were throwing in the towel, I declined. Instead, I told Wayne to just focus on working on Maddie “medically,” whatever that means, and he nodded before disappearing.

The unspoken implication of being told by doctors twice in twenty minutes that I should speak with the chaplain was not lost on me, however.

At that point Kirk decided to go downstairs so that he could call Heather and tell her what was going on. When he came back he told us that Heather, upon learning of the direness of the situation, was going to insist on being discharged against doctor’s orders.

The next few minutes were miserable. I had been told earlier that hovering parents could be a serious distraction in the NICU when things were really bad as they were now, so I decided to stay in the waiting room and not risk doing anything that might hurt Maddie’s chances. This was not easy though, as I knew that just down the hall my sweet baby daughter was fighting for her life. Or maybe she had already expired and they just hadn’t told me yet? These were the thoughts I was left with.

Eventually Wayne stepped back into the room and I knew that it was a very real possibility that he was there to tell me that Maddie had died. In the split second before he spoke I imagined how that horrible, unimaginable scenario would play out until he finally spoke.

“She’s doing better…for now.”

There was a collective gasp of relief in the waiting room. Wayne went on to explain that Maddie had been blowing pneumos, which basically meant that holes were breaking open in her lungs, and that air was seeping out of them and blocking her lungs from inflating, and thus stopping Maddie from breathing.

Wayne went on to explain that they had done what they had been taught, to insert tubes into Maddie’s side to try and suck out the air that was restricting her lungs, but it wasn’t working. Maddie was about to die.

At the last moment someone…I never found out who….decided to throw out the book on all they had been taught and to stick a tube directly into her lungs. Unorthodox as it may have been, it released the air that was blocking Maddie’s lungs from inhaling, and it saved her life.

To be continued in PART SIX when Maddie once again takes a turn for the worse, and her vital numbers plummet to unimaginable depths.

Once my parents left I went back into the NICU to check on Madeline. She was still connected to the high powered ventilator, but now was not moving her hands and legs as she had been previously. Maddie’s nurse, Nancy, told me that she had been given medication to temporarily paralyze her so that her body would do nothing but focus on breathing. She was also being given dopamine to keep her blood pressure up, fentanyl to minimize any pain she may be feeling, and the nitrix. I then asked if there were any ways that I could keep track of how Madeline was doing. Dr. Walker offered the “proximity test.” Doing this test is simple…you just look at Maddie’s isolette. If a lot of people are milling about, (as they had been pretty much all day), that was bad. On the other hand, if there were only one or two nurses standing casually nearby, things were probably stable. Nancy’s suggestion was for me to follow a blue number on Madeline’s monitor that kept track of the level of oxygen in her body. Ideally, this number should be between 85-95. Maddie’s number right then was in the low seventies, but this was okay for now I was told.

I called Heather again to give her yet another update, then returned to the waiting room. I was, as you can imagine, very worried at this point, and having to go through this without Heather was very hard. I couldn’t even imagine what it was like for Heather to be so far away from Maddie as all of this was happening.

Every few minutes I got up and went down to the NICU to check Maddie’s blue number. It was always different, once 88, another time 67. I began to check the number fairly obsessively as it was the only thing I felt I had any control of. One time, as I was checking the blue number, I noticed a large board on the wall that had a listing of all the NICU babies and some data about them. Something immediately leapt out at me. Under a column entitled “Acuity,” every baby was marked as being 1:2 except for Madeline who was marked 2:1. When I inquired about this I was told that acuity meant how many nurses were assigned to each baby based on their needs. Therefore, 1:2 meant that a baby was in good shape and able to share a single nurse with another baby. Maddie’s 2:1 meant that she had two nurses dedicated to her alone. Even with my horrid math skills I knew that that meant that Maddie was requiring four times the care of all the other babies.

I was very tired at this point, and when my father returned from dropping my Mom at the hotel we went down to the first floor to get sodas from the vending machine. We then sat at a table and talked for a while as we drank them. I don’t remember what we discussed, but it had to do with Maddie and the whole situation, and it was good to talk things through for a little while.

It was 2:30 in the morning when we went back up to the NICU where Madeline seemed relatively stable as her blue number was in the low eighties and her isolette was only surrounded by her two nurses. I mentioned to Nancy that I felt bad Heather was not able to see Madeline, so Nancy suggested we take a couple pictures of her with a Polaroid camera they kept in the NICU.
With my developing Polaroids in hand I decided to go home to get some sleep. I told Nancy to call me immediately if anything happened with Maddie, and that I would call at 6:30 in the morning to get an update before the nurses changed shifts.

Upon walking through my front door Rigby leapt off the couch and barked like mad until she realized it was me, then spun around in anticipation of the treat I always give her when I come home. As I gave Rigby her treat, Leah, who had been sleeping on the couch, woke, and I updated her about Maddie and showed her the Polaroids. I then retired to my room where I set out clean clothes in case the NICU called and I needed to get back to there immediately.

It took a little while to get to sleep with all of the thoughts in my head, but I eventually did, and before I knew it the alarm went off signaling it was 6:30 in the morning. My first thought was that the NICU had not called during the night, and that Maddie was hanging in there. I quickly called the NICU and was told by Nancy that Maddie was still relatively stable. I called Heather with this news, then got dressed, took Rigby out to the bathroom, and headed over to Heather’s hospital.

Heather seemed to be in relatively good spirits considering everything once I got there. I showed her and her mother, Linda, the Polaroids of Maddie, looked through a book about a preemie born under two pounds who was now a healthy four year old, and received a hat and booties for Maddie from a nice retired woman who donated her time at the hospital. Before too long, however, I decided to go and check on Maddie.

Maddie was still relatively stable when I returned to UCLA, and remained that way for the next few hours as my parents and I went back and forth from the waiting room to her side. Around two in the afternoon the stress and lack of sleep was really catching up to me though, so I decided to go home for a little nap. My parents thought this was a good idea, and headed off to check into a new hotel as the one they were at didn’t have any rooms that night. I told the day nurse to call me if there was any change in Maddie’s condition.

Once back at home I placed the phone on the bed stand and climbed under the covers. I had only been asleep for about twenty minutes when the phone rang. I woke up and checked the caller ID. It read: “UCLA NICU.” I felt sick as I answered it and heard Dr. Walker’s voice. She told me that Maddie was de-stating (her numbers were falling), and that I needed to get to the hospital as soon as possible. There was gravity in her voice that I had not heard the night before when I first met her. I told her I would be there right away and leapt out of bed.

In PART FIVE the doctors tell us that Maddie most likely would die that day.

We had been told that it would take about forty-five minutes for Maddie to be transferred and admitted to UCLA’s NICU, so my parents and I made a quick stop at my place in order for me to take a “military” shower (basically a ninety second shower), and change into fresh clothes. While I was doing that my parents took Rigby out to the bathroom. We then were off once again leaving Rigby very confused at her second two minute visit of the day. Luckily for her Leah had agreed to spend the night at our place with the pup because I didn’t know how long I would be at the hospital and Rigby – the spoiled princess that she is – had never spent a night alone in her life.

En route to UCLA all I could think about was how the transport team had to hand pump Maddie’s lungs, and how literally her life was in their hands. The doctor at the hospital where she was born had told me not to worry, as there were four men on the transport team who would take turns pumping, but this comforted me little. What if their hands got tired? And how long could they keep pumping Maddie’s lungs at the proper, life sustaining rate? I looked out the window at the stretch of road that we, like Maddie ‘s ambulance a few minutes earlier, were travelling on, and realized how lucky we were that this was happening Sunday at nine p.m. During the week this road was more often than not clogged with a sea of idling cars, and the parallel streets to the North and South, were no better. How would they have gotten Maddie to the Nitrous Oxide she so desperately needed if this was happening at that time of day? And how long would they have been able to keep pumping her lungs if they got stuck in one of those traffic jams? Could they have sent over the UCLA helicopter? If so, how long would that take? After all, every minute counts.

Soon we pulled into UCLA and I set out running toward the hospital as my parents parked the car. I didn’t have a clue how to get to the NICU though, and at first it felt like one of those bad dreams where you’re trying to get somewhere, but whenever you think you’re finally there you open a door and find another giant corridor ahead of you. Eventually I found my way inside and took the elevator up to the second floor where the NICU was.

Upon entering the NICU I was relieved to see Madeline lying in a basinet. Sure, she was once again surrounded by a team of nurses and doctors, and yes, her little chest was once again vibrating violently thanks to an even more high powered ventilator, but she had survived the ambulance ride over. I watched as nurses and doctors swarmed around her, then noticed a large machine to her right that administered the Nitrous Oxide.

Before too long the doctor in charge, Dr. Walker, introduced herself. She was a young woman, no older than me, and as I looked around the NICU I saw that just about everyone else there was young. This may be how you want your hospitals to look when you’re watching Grey’s Anatomy or E.R., but when your baby’s life is at stake you want Meryl Streep or Morgan Freeman in charge, not Katherine Heigl regardless of how cute she may be. UCLA, I was to find out, is a training hospital, and most of the doctors there are fellows (basically the last step before you become a full fledged doctor). I tried not to worry about all of this as my parents arrived and Dr. Walker suggested we move to a waiting room to discuss Maddie.

The “waiting room” Dr. Walker led us to was certifiably Kafkaesque — it was no more than ten by ten feet and without windows. Well, no real windows anyway. A painter (obviously, like the doctors, still in training) had painted a couple of poorly rendered windows on the walls, but they did little to relieve the feeling of claustrophobia the room elicited. Making the room even less pleasant was the fact that it was connected to a tiny bathroom, and whenever anyone used it you could hear absolutely everything going on inside it. There were also no magazines on the magazine rack. I didn’t notice any of this initially, however, as I was only interested in what the doctor had to say about Maddie.

Dr. Walker spoke in a calm and easy to understand manner, and before long had assuaged my worries about her age. What she had to say, unfortunately, was not very encouraging. She told us that Maddie was a very sick baby, and had three major issues to deal with. First, Maddie’s lungs, as Heather and I had feared, were underdeveloped. Second, there seemed to be a serious problem with Maddie’s heart, and a cardiologist, as we spoke, was giving Maddie an echocardiogram test (“echo” for short) to figure out what it was. Lastly, Maddie was premature, and would have to overcome all of the serious problems associated with being born early. Dr. Walker wanted us to understand that while they would be giving Maddie the best care possible, we needed to understand that it is a long road to health even for premature babies who didn’t have lung or heart issues as Maddie did.

I called Heather and related all that Dr. Walker had told me, then, about a half-hour later, was summoned back to the NICU to speak with the cardiologist fellow regarding the results of Maddie’s echo test. He too appeared to be very young, and explained that, while it was hard to get a good echo reading because the ventilator made Maddie’s chest move so much, he believed he knew what the problem was with Maddie’s heart. To put it in the simplest terms, a baby is supposed to start pumping blood through a ventricle in his or her heart upon being born. Maddie, unfortunately, could not do this because her ventricle was blocked. The cardiologist had a couple ideas on how to deal with the problem. Ideally, he said, a procedure could be performed where the ventricle would be un-blocked using a stint, similar to angioplasty. The cardiologist’s fear, however, was that once the ventricle was unblocked the chamber that is supposed to pump the blood through the ventricle may be too small to do the job. In that case surgery would be necessary to enlarge it. While I was trying to wrap my head around the idea of my little baby having open heart surgery, the cardiologist added that this would only be possible if Maddie gained enough weight and got strong enough to undergo surgery in one month. If it took Maddie longer than a month to become surgery ready the medication that would keep her heart going until then would start to have serious side effects, not least of which was brain damage.

I called Heather to tell her what the cardiologist said, then went to the waiting room to relate the same information to my parents. Soon Madeline’s nurse for the night, Nancy, dropped by to speak with us. Nancy had a kind, nurturing presence, and explained that there were two nurse shifts a day – one from seven a.m. to seven p.m., and another from seven p.m. to seven a.m. I could visit Madeline whenever I liked, she told me, except for between seven and eight in the morning and seven and eight at night when the nurses changed shifts. She also told me not to feel the need to remember anyone’s name as I would be meeting lots of people, and that I should never be afraid to ask any questions.

It was soon past midnight and my father and I decided that my mother, who was a recent stroke survivor, should be taken back to their hotel room so that she could get some sleep. It had been a long day with a lot of stress, and we didn’t want to press her any further. My father told me he would come back after he dropped her off, however.

To be continued in PART FOUR when Maddie struggles to survive her first night in the NICU.

Once I left Maddie behind in the NICU I looked into the waiting room and saw Maddie’s entourage – my parents, Heather’s parents, Heather’s aunts and uncles, Heather’s brother Kyle, her cousin Leah, even some of Heather and my friends. I smiled and strolled through the swinging door.

“She’s doing well!” I announced. “Three pounds one ounce!”

Not one person so much as looked at me. I stared at them in shock as they continued to chat away like I was invisible. After a second I cleared me throat and repeated, “She’s, uh, doing well…” Only then did someone say, “Oh, Mike!” It turns out that because I was clad in my face mask and scrubs, everyone assumed I was a doctor…a fact which pleased my mother to no end. Before too long everyone had surrounded me and was offering congratulations. The camera with Maddie’s first photos was passed around for all to see before Kyle took it and snapped a photo of me doing my best doctor pose (yes, my mom ordered a copy of it of Snapfish).

After a few minutes I went back to check on Heather who was still being worked on by the doctors. Before too long she was wheeled into recovery and a curtain was pulled around us for privacy. I showed Heather the photos of Maddie before telling her who was in the waiting room, and she seemed in good spirits. I then brought her parents, Kirk and Linda, back to see her and they celebrated Maddie’s arrival together.

Soon the nurse told us that we could move our things from Heather’s old room into her new one in post partum, so I went off to transfer our stuff. Luckily for me Leah and Kyle offered to do the job instead, so, after greeting Heather’s old friends and neighbors, Tara, Erin, and their Mom, Sheila, and after making a call to a couple of my friends with the news, I went back to be with Heather.

By this time the clock was ticking closer to six-thirty every minute, and, as Heather was given ice chips and medication to deal with the pain of her C-section, I could hardly contain my excitement about going back to see Maddie. Finally, it was time, so I left Heather and practically skipped down to the hall to the NICU.

Upon pushing through the doors of the NICU my heart sank. The basinet I last saw Maddie in was now surrounded by a host of doctors and nurses, and Maddie’s color, which had been a healthy pink, was now grey. Most disturbingly, she had been placed on a high powered respirator that gave her five hundred breaths a minute, and as a result her little chest vibrated violently. A doctor, upon becoming aware of my presence, came over and told me that Maddie had taken a turn for the worse and was having great difficulty breathing. Furthermore, x-rays indicated that she appeared to have some serious heart issues as well. The doctor then suggested we continue this conversation with Heather.

As I trailed behind the doctor en route to Heather in recovery, I felt like a fool for being so blindsided by all of this. Sure, Maddie had cried like a normal baby upon being born, and yes, the nurses had acted casual when I’d left the NICU like she was a normal baby, but I should have known better than to let myself believe she was a normal baby. Heather and I had been warned many, many times that premature babies like Maddie were in great danger even if they hadn’t had very low amniotic fluid, which Maddie had. I flashed back to our doctor warning us around 21 weeks that we should consider terminating the pregnancy because there was a great possibility that even if Maddie made it to viability (the earliest possible time a baby can be delivered and have a chance of survival), she would be very sick and very well might not make it. Heather and I decided then that we could not terminate the pregnancy even if it meant we might have to go through the hell of losing a baby, but I couldn’t help but wonder now if that was exactly what we were about to go through.

I pulled back the curtain in recovery to see Heather and Linda chatting away with happy expressions, and I felt sick knowing what the doctor was about to tell them. For the next few minutes the doctor spoke about Maddie’s situation, and this time she added that they were considering transferring her to the UCLA Medical Center because Maddie’s needs were beyond what they could care for at our present hospital.

Once the doctor left the mood in the room was very somber. Heather and I asked her Dad if he could go to the waiting room and tell everyone what was going on, and thankfully he agreed. We wanted everyone to know that we greatly appreciated their coming, but that in light of what was going on it was probably best that they go home.

The minutes that followed seemed interminable. We sat mostly in silence, scared and worried. Before too long the silence was broken by a hospital bed being wheeled into the room. It came to rest mere feet away from us on the other side of a curtain. Soon the cooing of a baby was heard, which was quickly followed by jubilant voices saying things like “He’s so beautiful!” and “Look at those little feet!” As laughter and the flashing of cameras echoed throughout the room from behind the curtain, I asked Heather’s nurse how soon Heather could be moved to her private room in post partum. The nurse said it wouldn’t be for at least another forty minutes, so Heather, her mother, and myself sat there in silence listening to this family celebrate the birth of their healthy baby.

Kirk soon came back in to tell me that my parents wanted to talk to me, so I went out to the waiting room. Upon seeing them I immediately broke down. My parents hugged me, and I did my best to compose myself and explain what was happening. They tried to be encouraging, but they were clearly worried. Other families we didn’t know were in the waiting room as well, and, as we discussed the details of Maddie’s situation, you could see people, one by one, stop their conversations and listen in with sad expressions.

I returned to Heather and learned that it had been decided Maddie would indeed be taken to the UCLA Medical Center so that she could be put on Nitrous Oxide, a powerful gas that would help her breathe. While we, of course, wanted Maddie to go wherever she had go to in order to get the best treatment, the one concern was for Heather. She had yet to see Maddie other than for that fleeting moment after she was born, and if Maddie was transferred Heather wouldn’t see her until she was released from her present hospital three days later. Heather’s nurse said that sometimes babies are taken to their mother’s room in post partum for a visit before being transported to another hospital, but UCLA’s transport specialist, who had arrived with a stack of legal papers for me to sign, vetoed that idea in light of Maddie’s condition. What we could do, however, was park Heather’s bed outside of the NICU so that she could get a quick glimpse of Maddie before she left St. Johns.

Heather was told, once her bed had been safely placed outside the NICU, that Madeline should be leaving the NICU in less than five minutes. Linda, Kirk, Kyle, Leah, and I joined Heather in waiting for Maddie to appear, and for some reason I felt like we were a group of paparazzi waiting for a celebrity to appear.

“Maddie! Over here! Maddie! Who are you wearing?”

Perhaps like a celebrity, however, Maddie kept us waiting. After ten minutes she still had not appeared, and a nurse eventually came out to tell us that it would be a little longer. We nodded and waited some more only to have the nurse re-appear again and tell us that the transport team was having trouble getting Maddie stable enough to leave the NICU.

The main problem in transporting Maddie, it turns out, was that the transport respirator only gave one hundred breaths per minute, and at that point it was taking the maximum setting of five hundred breaths per minute on this hospital’s most powerful respirator to keep Maddie alive. Whenever they would attempt to switch Maddie to the one hundred breaths per minute respirator Maddie’s vital numbers would plummet. We later spoke with a man who was on the transport team, and he told us that after about forty-five minutes everyone on the team sort of looked up and shared a frightened look that said, “How the hell are we ever going to do this?” What they ended up doing was hand-pumping Maddie’s lungs which, for some reason, worked.

Finally, an hour and fifteen minutes after we were told she would appear, the doors of the NICU were thrown open and four men pushed Maddie’s isolette past us. The lead man wore a vest that had “SECURITY” written on it and made sure no one got in their way as a man behind him frantically squeezed a pump connected to Maddie. Maddie looked impossibly tiny and oh so fragile as she disappeared through the swinging doors toward the ambulance.

Heather and I had decided earlier that I would follow the baby to UCLA while she, of course, had to stay behind to recover. Splitting up was hardly ideal, but we agreed that the most important thing was for one of us to be with Maddie, so I kissed Heather goodbye and headed off with my parents.

To be continued in PART THREE when Maddie is transfered to the UCLA NICU and faces her biggest challenges yet.

PART ONE begins ten weeks after Heather had been put on bed rest because her water had broke prematurely, and three weeks after she had been hospitalized.

The day Madeline was born started not unlike those of the previous two weeks Heather and I had spent at the hospital. I woke on the tiny bench-like ledge I was using as a bed, ate the bagel from Heather’s breakfast tray, and chatted with Heather about how she felt. That morning Heather had tenderness in her abdomen, and the amniotic fluid that she had been leaking for weeks was becoming redder in color. This may sound hard to believe, but Heather had been having alarming symptoms for so long without having to deliver that neither one of us was as concerned as, say, the average person would be if they woke up with red stuff leaking from their basement area. Soon our obstetrician dropped by to do an exam of Heather’s cervix, and, after declaring it in good shape, took off with plans to stop by again tomorrow. It seemed like we would make it through another day.

Around noon my parents dropped by to say goodbye as they were heading back to their home in the San Francisco Bay Area. Once my parents bid Heather adieu it was decided they would drop me off at my place for a much needed shower, and then I would come back to spend the rest of the day with Heather. Before we got home, however, my Mom suggested we stop for lunch, so we went to a Deli where I ordered an onion omelet and split an impulsive order of a sardine sandwich with my Dad. As you may imagine, my breath was hardly minty-fresh afterwards, and I knew that I would have to brush my teeth thoroughly before returning to Heather whose pregnancy had made her very sensitive of smells.

After lunch my parents came up to Heather and my place to use the bathroom. Minutes after getting inside the phone rang. It was a frantic Heather who cried, “They’re going to do a C-section! Come back to the hospital now!” My parents, who thankfully hadn’t left for home yet, raced out with me leaving our dog Rigby wondering what was up with our two minute visit. As my Dad drove to the hospital as fast as possible I was glad I didn’t have to drive because my hands were shaking and I was unable to think straight. I couldn’t believe this was actually happening. Though the doctors were shocked that we had almost made it to twenty-nine weeks, Heather and I were still hoping/thinking we would get to at least 30 weeks.

As we neared the hospital I realized that A) I had not showered and smelled like a homeless man during the summer, and B) my breath stank of onions and sardines. I immediately imagined leaning over Heather in the delivery room and breathing, “You’re doing great! You can do this!” and her screaming “GET AWAY FROM ME!!!” Realizing I had to do something and fast, I commandeered every piece of gum in the car, and began chewing a giant wad of wintergreen/spicy peppermint/Bazooka Joe gum.

Once I arrived at Heather’s side she told me that her leaking amniotic fluid had suddenly turned thick and bright red a half- hour earlier. When she told her nurse about this she was informed within minutes that she would be having a C-section ASAP. Everything was happening incredibly fast. Soon the anesthesiologist arrived and I held Heather’s hand as he inserted the needle into her back for the epidural. Heather didn’t seem to be in too much pain, although she did wonder out loud who the hell came up with this pregnancy idea in the first place. The nurses then wheeled Heather away and left me to change into scrubs. I took the scrubs into the bathroom and began to change. I must have been taking too long though because a nurse soon knocked on the door and bellowed that I didn’t have to take off all my clothes and that I could just put the scrubs on over what I had on. I called out “Yeah, I know that,” then looked at my stark naked body in the mirror.

Once clad in my scrubs (with the clothes I had come in hastily thrown back on underneath) I was told to wait in Heather’s room as they prepped her for surgery. Heather’s parents soon arrived and I filled them in on what was happening before the nurse came to get me.

In the delivery room Heather was lying on her back facing away from me. I could see her feet all the way up to her neck, but not her head which was hidden behind a blue curtain. The nurse took me around the curtain and directed me to sit on a stool next to Heather’s head. I did so and took Heather’s hand. Soon our obstetrician and another doctor went to work, but all Heather and I could see was the curtain. From time to time I would sit up as tall as possible and get a peek at the doctors who were busy looking downward and moving their hands to and fro. Eventually a doctor said. “Looks like a baby!” and I stood up. That was an, uh, mistake. There was no baby in sight, but I did spy a gaping hole in Heather’s stomach area. When I sat back down on the stool Heather looked at me like, “How’s it look?” I forced a feeble thumbs-up.

I stayed on the stool from that point on, and in a couple of minutes one of the doctors said “Here we go!” I sat up as tall as possible once again and saw our obstetrician leaning over Heather. She seemed to be putting some real muscle into it, and it was a bit disconcerting to see her looking as if she was struggling to open an especially tight bottle of peanut butter. Seconds later, however, we heard a baby crying! Heather and I were ecstatic that Madeline was able to use her lungs because our greatest fear, what with her being premature and lacking in amniotic fluid (the thing that develops a baby’s lungs), was that her lungs would be too immature for her to survive. But here she was crying! Heather and I shared a thankful look, and tears of joy welled in Heather’s eyes as she said “She’s crying! She’s crying!”

Soon little Madeline was hoisted in the air, and the first thing I saw was that she had this shock of black hair just like mine!

I had never really stopped to imagine what our baby would look like when she came out, and now that I was looking at her it was this amazing confirmation that this baby we had been talking about in the abstract for so long was in fact my own daughter! The nurses placed her on a table, and I took stock of the rest of her. Let’s see…two hands…two feet…a cute little face…all looks good! I then fumbled in my scrubs for Heather’s camera as a nurse announced her weight: “Three pounds one ounce!” She was way bigger than the doctors had imagined she would be, which was heartening, and I took photo after photo of Madeline as the nurses cleaned her.

Before too long Madeline was wrapped up in a blanket and the nurses were ready to take her to the NICU. Heather and I had been told that if Maddie was stable enough they would let Heather see her real quick before taking her away, so when a nurse took Maddie over to Heather I felt great knowing that Maddie was indeed stable enough for her first visit with her Mom. Heather kissed Maddie on the little hat the nurses had put on her, and Heather was glowing. It was a beautiful thing to see Maddie and her mother’s first moment together.

In the NICU I was told I could stay with Maddie for ten minutes and watch the nurses tend to her. In that time I got even more pics including her first close-up, and, when the nurses told me the ten minutes were up, Maddie was a healthy pink color and still crying away. The nurses seemed real casual as they said I could come back in a couple hours, at 6:30, to see her again.

To be continued in PART TWO when Maddie takes a turn for the worse.