I Couldn't Protect Them

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I Couldn’t Protect Them
Joseph Fowler, Bloomington, IN

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The C-section for our second child was scheduled for 9 am on a sunny, warm day on May 17, 2011. Arriving on time to the hospital was the only thing that went according to our plan.

I was very excited about the upcoming birth of our second child. The birth of our daughter two years earlier made us a family. This child was going to complete it. I couldn’t wait to fit this final piece of the puzzle neatly into the place of my increasingly perfect life.

Everything started out just as it did when we had our first, except I was much more relaxed. I had been here. I had done this before. I was ready to meet our child.

We were in the operating room and the doctor carefully opened my wife up. We thought everything would happen very quickly as it did with our daughter’s delivery. The doctor and the midwife pushed and pulled to get the baby out. As soon as I saw him, I shouted, “It’s a boy!”

Instead of handing him immediately to my wife to hold him as they had done with our daughter, they whisked him over to the workstation. Jefferson was crying, like a baby should, so we were confused as to why they were starting to wipe him down and suction him out before letting us hold him.

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“He’s not pinking up,” one of the nurses told me as I went over to see my son. Through the army of nurses, I could see he appeared to be breathing but his color was not normal. He was a light blue, grayish color. He looked more like the color of shark than a human. This was not normal. This was not good. They called in a respiratory team.

I tried to push my way closer. I asked hundreds of questions all at once. The nurses blocked my way and ignored me. I became furious and frantic.

What was happening to my son?! Why did he look like death?!

The respiratory team arrived and began examining him and I was pushed further out of the way. “There’s nothing we can do for him,” one of the doctors said.

The Earth stopped moving. Time evaporated.

My son, who I had waited to meet for 9 long months, was going to leave me before I even got the chance to touch him. I went empty inside.

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As the respiratory team left, the nurses continued to work on him. One of them got on the phone and talked to someone. The rest appeared to be preparing to move him. “Why won’t they let me hold him?” I screamed in my head.

Sensing my anxiety and realizing I was about to knock them all down like they were tackling dummies, one of the nurses turned to me and explained that Jefferson was breathing so the reason he wasn’t pink had nothing to do with his respiratory system. They believed it was his circulatory system and were prepping him to be moved to a cardiac specialist.

He had my heart already. I wanted to reach into my chest and give mine to him. I wanted him to turn pink, to live, to grow, to become a man. But I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t be his father and protect him and hold him and make him better. All I could do was watch as his tiny body writhed and wiggled while cold hands hooked him up to all kinds of devices.

Then, behind me, I noticed something else going on. The doctor and one of the nurses had been sewing up my wife after the C-section and now I heard louder, concerned voices coming from them. I turned around to see them frantically working on my wife.

No. This was not happening.

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I turned and grabbed one of the nurses by the arm. “What…” I couldn’t say more. My eyes were certainly wild and I knew they were filled because everything was blurry.

“We are having trouble stopping her bleeding,” the nurse told me.

Little did I know this was only the beginning of this nightmare.

My son was blue. My wife was bleeding from somewhere. What was I supposed to do? Do I stay with my wife or go with my son? They both needed me.

I acted more than made a decision. As the nurses rushed my son to the NICU, I pulled my hand away from my wife hoping, praying, it would not be the last time I saw her alive, and ran after my son.

When we arrived at the NICU, I managed to get my first close look at my son. His long little fingers wiggled and searched for something to grasp. Instinctively, I stuck my finger out and he grabbed hold and didn’t let go. Everything was blurry again.

The NICU team immediately began tests on Jefferson and discovered he had a congenital heart defect. In this case, they found that his arteries were switched.

He needed heart surgery. Immediately.

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They prepped Jefferson for an ambulance ride across town to Children’s Mercy hospital where a pediatric cardiologist would essentially keep a small hole in his heart open to temporarily allow his heart to work properly with the help of machines.

The nurses wheeled him to where my wife, thankfully, seemed to be okay from the C-section. She got to see him for the first time. She couldn’t hold him. She barely got to touch him. She was able to put her arm through an opening in this plastic box, touch him and talk to him for only a few minutes. I was sad, angry, frustrated but, most of all, deflated.

I was not allowed in the ambulance, something I fought hard to do but lost. The nurses told me to wait 20 minutes before I drove to the hospital so they would have time to get Jefferson ready for his first surgery. I spent the time holding my wife and telling her I would do everything I could to make sure Jefferson came back to her. Alive.

Since I had never been to Children’s Mercy, I fumbled my way there, making several wrong turns and probably going way over the speed limit. I parked. Somewhere. And probably illegally. I rushed through the emergency room doors and was greeted by one of the nurses who said frustrated, “We’ve been waiting for you.”

Apparently, there were papers to sign before Jefferson could go into surgery and either they forgot to tell me or did not believe I would really wait the 20 minutes. All I thought, though, was I had failed as his father. Minutes were precious. I wasted a few of them that could have meant the difference between his life and death.

I placed both my hands on his box, got as close to him as possible and told him I loved him and would be right here when he got out of surgery. The nurses took him into the operating room and I was directed to the waiting room.

The doctors and nurses were vague with all their information. This really pissed me off. I like to know what is going on. I like to be in control. But I knew almost nothing. I didn’t know how serious this surgery was or how long it might take. I didn’t know this was only the first of several surgeries he would have to have assuming he made it through this one.

Not knowing how long I would be waiting and realizing my cell phone didn’t work in the waiting room, I went down the hall to where my cell phone would work and called my wife.

She didn’t answer. Her sister did.

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“Where’s Kristine?” I asked.

“She’s in the ER getting a CT scan,” my sister-in-law told me.

My wife’s twin sister is an athletic trainer and understands a lot about the human body. I knew she would tell me how serious it is.

“The doctors think she might be bleeding internally,” she told me. Then, much softer, she hauntingly said, “It’s not good, Joseph.”

This is not happening, I thought. This can’t be happening!

I clicked ‘End’ on my phone and started walking back to the operating room. I happened to notice the time on the phone and my heart dropped to the floor. WHERE IS MY DAUGHTER?!

By this time, our family should have been together in our antepartum room at the hospital. My wife was there while Jefferson and I were across town in another hospital and I didn’t even know where my daughter was or who was taking care of her. At that moment, with my wife in ER, my son in surgery and my daughter God knows where; I believed I had lost my entire family. They were all gone.

I glanced out the window of the waiting room. Outside, cars and buses were whizzing by. People were busily shopping or taking a mid-day run. The grass was the greenest it had been yet that spring. The sun was bright. The sky was clear and blue like the ocean.

Everywhere the world was going on with its regular business on one of the most beautiful and peaceful days of the year. Inside that waiting room, my world had stopped. I was alone. I began to cry. And cry. And cry.

I prayed to God. I blamed God. I waited.

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After about three hours, which felt like 300 years, the doctor came into the waiting room. Jefferson had made it through the surgery like a champ. They ballooned his heart to keep a small hole opened in it so it would keep beating. They would do a follow-up surgery to switch the arteries as soon as he was strong enough.

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I thanked the doctor and rushed out of the waiting room to a place where my cell phone would work so I could find out about my wife. She answered the phone and it was the most beautiful sound I heard that day. She, too, was ok. The CT scan showed she wasn’t bleeding internally.

When I first saw Jefferson after surgery, a giant lump entered my throat that didn’t leave for weeks. This tiny, thankfully now pink, baby had so many wires attached to him; he looked like he was in the middle of a plate of colored spaghetti.

It was two days before the nurses would let me hold him. When I did, I didn’t let go of him for 12 hours. All the tests, feedings, and diaper changes were done with me holding him.

When I wasn’t holding him, I was always near him, always talking to him. The nurses finally started making up excuses to get me to leave so I could take a shower or get something to eat or go to the bathroom. I didn’t care about me but they knew I needed to take care of myself for Jefferson.

On the fourth day of Jefferson’s life, my wife was released from the hospital and brought to Children’s Mercy. She wasn’t allowed to walk, but she was there. I handed Jefferson to her so she could hold him for the first time in his life. It’s what I needed to know it was going to be okay. Everything was going to be okay. It was one of the better moments in my life.

We were prepared for Jefferson to have his second surgery to switch his arteries when he was eighteen days old. We sat in the waiting room with our family members around us, waiting for the regular updates from the operating room. They called us to a private room for the first update and the doctor came in. He said they were stopping the surgery. I didn’t know what to say or how to react. They thought he had an infection and wanted to make sure before doing the surgery.

They sent us back to the ICU and for ten agonizing days, we waited for the doctors to give the clearance for him to go back on the operating table. At 28 days old, Jefferson went back into surgery. He made it through with flying colors and only seven days later, we were on our way home.

We learned later that of all the congenital heart defects, this was the best one to have since surgeons have been performing this surgery for over 25 years. After his arterial repair surgery, he has no restrictions and should not need any additional surgeries.

To see him today, you would never know he went through this traumatic ordeal. He is like every other toddler: rambunctious, full of energy and throws a fair number of tantrums.

I feel so fortunate my family remained intact but the experience still haunts me. I was so helpless while so much was happening to my family.

Sometimes when I look at my son, all I see are the needles and wires that were once attached to his tiny, fragile body.

And I cry.

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Joseph Fowler was a college football coach who decided to be the Director of Human Development and Domestic Engineering of the Fowler household, a.k.a. at-home dad. His daughter, Kennedy, was born in August 2009 and his son, Jefferson, in May 2011. He stays involved professionally with the National At-Home Dad Network. He and the kids can often be found at a library story time, the YMCA, the science museum, lunching in the park, or on the bike trail. Joseph and his family live in Bloomington, Indiana.

Hogan Hilling is a nationally recognized and OPRAH approved author of 12 published books. Hilling has appeared on Oprah. He is the creator of the DADLY book series and the “#WeLoveDads” and “#WeLoveMoms” Campaigns, which he will launch in early 2018. He is also the owner of Dad Marketing https://dadmarketingconsulting.wordpress.com/, a first of its kind consultation firm on how to market to dads. He is also the founder of United We Parent, www.unitedweparent.com. Hilling is also the author of the DADLY book series and first of its kind books. The first book is about marketing to dads “DADLY Dollar$” and two coffee table books that feature dads and moms. “DADLY Dads: Parents of the 21st Century” and “Amazing Moms: Parents of the 21st Century.” Hilling is the father of three children and lives in southern California.
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Originally published in Dads Behaving DADLY: 67 Truths, Tears, and Triumphs of Modern Fatherhood Copyright © 2014 Motivational Press. Reprinted with permission.
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