On Naming

Blur.  Delirium.  Insanity.  Life.  Many words could be used to describe those first days.  None seem sufficient, yet all seem accurate.

Perhaps Dickens was right - it truly was the best of times and the worst of times.  We were parents!....of a 25 week old.  We have a son!...who will spend his first three months in the hospital.  I am a Mother/Father!....of a child that I can neither hold nor adequately care for.  Furthermore, Katie herself was still recovering from the c-section - itself a significant surgery with its own inherent recovery time. (Let me say that Katie and I have a new found respect for all you mothers (and accompanying fathers) who have had a c-section and actually took your baby home post-operatively.  We barely got by without a newborn at home and with lots of help.  Props.)

I will defer describing the events leading up to the c-section for now as they likely deserve their own post, but will instead start with Edward's first few minutes.  Katie was supine on the operating table, cloaked in sterile drapes and slightly loopy from the conscious sedation administered.  I was stationed at the head of the operating table outfitted in a hilariously oversized blue surgical jumpsuit complete with booties, a hat and a mask with tears streaming down and thick yellow snot leaking around said mask.  Though I could not see over the surgical screen, from my obstetric days in medical school, I was able to maintain a fairly good idea of the progression of the surgery from the sharp, focused comments of the attending and resident physicians.  As I held Katie's hand, we traded both intimate and inane comments that only a completely overwhelming situation (and anesthetics in Katie's case) can produce.  Then suddenly, Edward was out.  

But it wasn't Edward yet.  We hadn't told anyone his name.  In fact, we had only just decided that day.  So more accurately, the baby was out.  He was calmly transferred from the obstetricians' hands into those of the neonatalogist's (and about 12 other people).  Within about 3 minutes of life, he was intubated and had a peripheral IV.  I could see next to nothing from my vantage point, but distinctly remember hearing the neonatalogist saying (twice!) "...and that's a cry.....and that's another cry...".  I strained so hard to hear our little son cry but could not hear anything over the operating room din.  Then they started to whisk him away to the NICU, which was located one floor below the Labor & Delivery operating suite in which we were.  The attending neonatalogist came to the head of the bed (they were still operating on Katie) to give us an update.  Truthfully, I do not remember a word he said, but remember nodding a lot and then thanking him.  He started to walk away when I stood up suddenly and yelled "Do you need to know his name?"

"Well, yes...absolutely" he replied, when in all actuality he did not need to know it at all.

"Edward Michael" I said. "Edward Michael."

I then looked at Katie.  I had originally wanted him to name him Michael Edward and call him Edward.  Katie, as a fifth grade teacher, was against calling him by his middle name as this can be a 'source confusion in grade school' (her words, not mine).  I had only acquiesced a few hours before this moment.  She smiled and said "I was worried you were going to say it the other way!"  Luckily, I had gotten it right.

And so he was.  Edward Michael.