Nine years ago…
Nine years ago today my wife called from the hospital at 3 am, “They gave me magnesium, we’ll know in about 30 minutes if it’ll stop the contractions.” She was one day shy of 28 weeks along and she’d been in the hospital for 4 weeks.
“Ok,” I said groggily, “gimme a call in 30 minutes if it doesn’t.”
“Ok,” she said clearly as groggy.
Wait. It takes 40 minutes to get to the hospital… and that’s if you speed. I call her back, “I’m leaving now,” and I got there in 30. The magnesium did it’s thing, however, and I plopped into a chair and watched her nod off to sleep.
I awoke at 9 am — still in the chair — and offered a sleepy, “G’morning…” She answered with only two words, “Uh, blood.”
Instantly the place snapped alive. There was some unintelligible announcement on the PA system that used the word “stat” and suddenly, the nurses and doctors who were only seconds before dressed so casually magically appeared in scrubs and masks. They flipped levers on her bed and rolled her away.
I uh… just stood there… very much alone.
Fifteen minutes later they rolled a very red, very tiny, baby by on the way to the neonatal intensive care unit where he’d stay for another seven weeks.
“Dad, meet Ryan.”