What began as a typical fall day in north eastern Iowa on a beautiful college campus, ended in the greatest day of my life. This is of course the day Jake arrived. It all started when I got a call from our friend Becca who had arrived at the hospital with Andrea, for what seemed to be a routine check-up. As I walked to the parking lot leaving the school, Becca informs me that Andrea was just told by doctors that she is 5 cm dilated and that she would definitely be delivering the baby today. I calmly asked how Andrea was doing knowing instantly that I might miss the birth of my firstborn child. O boy. I continued towards my rental car, which turned into a full out sprint and sped out of town as fast as I could. 20 minutes later Becca calls again saying Andrea’s 7 cm dilated and the baby is breech (butt first). Knowing that most breech babies are bound for a c-section, I began to panic. “How long till it happens?”, still pretending to be relaxed knowing there may have to be an emergency c-section. Becca replies that the doctors aren’t sure, but they said probably within the next few hours or so. The next few hours or so!? And then it really hit me… I really wasn’t going to make it back to Chicago in time for the delivery since I still had another 4.5 hours to go. Pedal to the medal…
Meanwhile, I can hear Andrea screaming in the background with excruciating detail. “Can I talk to my wife?”. Andrea gets on the phone and starts crying saying “I’m sorry babe, I’m so sorry, I just couldn’t wait.” As if this is Andrea’s fault. So not only am I probably not going to make it for the birth, my wife is clearly on the brink of passing out from the pain and undoubtedly still in shock from the wave of info coming from the doctors. Becca chimes in, “doctor is back… gotta go… call you back soon, I promise”. Awesome. At this point I am driving over 90 MPH and nearly reaching 100 as I try and call my best man Schoeny (lives in Chicago) but despite 4 calls in a row he doesn’t pick up. Great. I call Becca back and she tells me that since the baby is so small (5 pounds they estimated) they are going to try and deliver vaginally and not have a c-section if possible. Also, Becca explains, they will need to perform the birth in the operating room in case an emergency c-section is required. Oh ya, and it’s too late for the epidural so baby is coming naturally. Perfect.
As if the guilt of not being there wasn’t bad enough, I now had to grapple with the fact that Andrea was experiencing the most severe pain in her life, and there was nothing I or the doctors could do about it (except hold Becca’s hand). I told Becca I needed to try and call Schoeny and I tried again but nada. I then called my sister Emily – the proud and awesome parent of two beautiful children herself. “Hi Em, Ang is at the hospital and she’s about to have our baby”. Em proceeds to freak out realizing the severity of the situation. Deep breathe. I kept telling myself, Becca is there, no worries and remained hopeful about not having to do the c-section “ a c-section is last resort” I yelled into the speaker phone at the doctors.
It was outside of Madison, WI when I was able to hear the final pushes. Becca had me on speaker phone most of time so I was able to hear the coming and goings of doctors, nurses, and contractions (reminder, no pain meds for Ang). Every 2 minutes or so I would encourage Andrea to “push, push, push, push” and “breathe… you’re doing great babe! BREATHE”. And then … I’d get cut off and lose cell phone reception. Sweet. Are you f’n kidding me? Maybe it was because I was in the middle of nowhere, or that I was driving too fast to get cell reception, this happened at least 3 times. Why is this happening? Whyyy. I finally get through at long last and can hear Andrea pushing the loudest yet… “last push”, doctor says. By the sound of things, I knew this was it. How can this be happening right now? I slowed down (to about 90) and listened to every last yell and encouragement from Becca and the doctors… and finally… I hear the cry. At the next moment I hear the words, “It’s a boy”. I continue to slow down to a complete stop and breakdown with tears of happiness. Andrea gets the phone and as they bring him over to her she exclaims, “and he’s actually cute” expecting to see a wrinkled raisin face like Lyndon B. Johnson. The shock of what had just happened over a 3 hour time span and the sheer uncertainty of everything was so overwhelming. Simply incredible. I cried like a baby myself for about 10 minutes after pulling off the side of the road.
My words cannot describe the feeling when the moment occurred. The guilt of not being there, the pride in my wife for doing such an amazing job. But most of all, it was the highest of highs I have ever experienced. Yet at the same time, it was the lowest of the lows to miss this most monumental day for Andrea and I. After gathering myself, I pulled back onto the highway with reduced haste. I missed it. Not how we had planned it. In fact, we had asked our doctor recently, “about how long do we have generally speaking when she goes into labor?” Our doc replied, “I’d say 6 hours or so” and then she whispered to me, “more like 10” with a quick smile and poke in Andrea’s arm. In Andrea’s Birth Story post, she talks about how she was most likely in labor for days. Crazy.
When I finally got to the outskirts of Chicago, I noticed that traffic was building up. This is perfect. I had made such great time from Iowa to Chicago that I made it back just in time for rush hour traffic. You have got to be kidding me. 5:45pm grid lock on a Thursday. Another 2 painstaking hours later I entered room 411 to see Andrea, Becca and Emily (Becca’s twin sister) there to greet me. I put the flowers down and walked over to my wife. You did it babe. We did it. I love you. We then went to go see Jacob Nicholas so I could hold him for the first time. Amazing. It’s so cliché I know, but it was the most surreal day ever. I know these highs and lows will continue each day, each month and each year. I can only hope to be there for every milestone and bump in the road.
