SmugMug's Don MacAskill

On October 30th at 8:09am, I became a daddy again! Audrey Elizabeth MacAskill weighed 7 pounds 5 ounces and was 19.5″ long. Oh, and before I forget, she’s perfect:

My wife has a great blog entry about how she arrived, complete with more photos, but here’s my side of the story.

You may remember that we have young twins (22 months old, to be exact) who arrived very prematurely after a long, hard pregnancy, spent a lot of time in the NICU, and have now grown up into beautiful walking, talking little people. This time, I was surprised to find out, was very very different than last.

Audrey was full-term, and was delivered by scheduled C-Section. (Yes, we made an appointment months in advance, showed up, and out she came. Sounds crazy, eh?). There were no complications with the pregnancy, and no bedrest at all, let alone trips to the hospital. So you’d think I’d have been totally calm, collected, and prepared.

I wasn’t.

I was a nervous wreck! Last time, I was pumped up on adrenaline and excited to be a daddy, despite all the complications and the possibility of major problems with my super-early twins. I had no fear. This time, as I sat out in the hallway waiting for the surgery team to prep my wife for her C-Section, I had butterflies in my stomach and couldn’t stop thinking about all the things that could go wrong with the surgery. I guess I was feeling like everything had gone too miraculously well, so I started wondering when something would go wrong. Those of you who know me understand how uncharacteristic this is – my glass is *always* half full.

So I sat out in the hallway for an eternity, and as the time stretched on, I was convinced something bad had already happened. It was taking them forever to prep! But finally they called me into the surgery room and I put on my mask, slung my camera over my shoulder, and prepared for battle. The C-Section was remarkably similar to last time except for a few things:

• They had to cut a bigger hole in my wife, it seemed like. Makes sense, with a much bigger baby.
• The smell of her cauterized flesh seemed much stronger this time.
• This time I got faint and woozy. I’ll bet cauterized flesh smells do that from time to time. I did not, however, pass out! I just had to sit down partway through. 🙂

The whole procedure took 9 minutes until my daughter was out, and then a few more minutes to stitch up. Audrey came out looking amazingly healthy – big and pink, with a perfectly round head. The nurses kept telling me how they’d never seen a baby with quite such a perfect head before. I beamed, of course, and kept hollering over my shoulder at my poor paralyzed wife that she’d done a great job ‘baking’ little Audrey.

And she had. Audrey was beautiful, crying well, breathing well, ten fingers *and* ten toes. No need to visit the NICU for this one – just the nursery for a quick bath and a thorough once-over. They pronounced her healthy and let me take her back to her Mama almost immediately, which was so nice.

In some ways, it was almost like being a daddy for the first time. Lots of these experiences were brand-new. Last time, we had to look at our kids through plexiglass. This time, she got to come stay in our hospital room with us as we took a nap. Last time, we couldn’t breastfeed them yet and instead had to feed them through a gavage tube in their nose. This time Audrey, aka ‘The Piranha’, latched right on immediately. As you can imagine, it was an emotional time for my wife and I – we could bond with our daughter immediately in a way we couldn’t with the twins.

Perhaps best of all, Leia and Logan really love their new sister. We were afraid they’d get jealous, especially of all the time Mama spends taking care of her, but they’re all smiles and love to help out. Whew!

Thank you to all the nurses and doctors who helped us during our hospital stay, and especially during the surgery. And a special thank you to all of our friends and family who’ve been helping out with the kids during Elizabeth’s recovery. We’re so in love with sweet Audrey and we couldn’t have done it without you!