A year ago today is probably the most bittersweet day of my life. At 5:02am September 6, 2012, Mayla Grace Ellis was born into the world. I have to imagine that most parents would say, the day their children were born was the best day of their lives. Well, the day I married Keri was a pretty solid day too, and I would probably put that up at the top. The day Mayla was born, while being incredibly exciting and joy-filled, it was also very scary, stressful and stress-filled, and painful. Here was a day that we had longed for, for a long time. You see, Keri and I (mostly Keri but I had a role too) were first pregnant in September of 2011. We had spent a lot of time praying about when to begin trying, also endured mucho harassment at the hands of some great people who seem to think “the more, the merrier, and sooner” (just kidding, love you guys, and you know who you are), and sensed August 2011 was our “go time”. Sadly, we lost that baby at the end of October. Nobody knew we were pregnant or even trying. Despite our loss and pain, we knew there would be a plan in it and sensed the Lord telling us to get back on the proverbial “horse” and go again. So we did and before we left to go back to Switzerland, we announced to our families only that we were pregnant. This was December 31, 2011 and our decision to share was based on the request for prayer for the safety of our baby, Keri, me (little did I know that I’d need more prayer than the other two put together), and the next nine months (little did we know we would need more prayer in months 10-22 than ever before).
So back to September 6, 2012. I remember the day very clearly and while I won’t go back to it to give you all the details, I will if you REALLY want to know them, I will say that the day was a complete whirlwind. And by whirlwind, I mean everything and everyone around me was “whirlwinding” around and I was just standing there like a bonehead not comprehending what was going on. Everything that happened in that delivery happened so fast, except Mayla actually coming out of course, that I didn’t have the opportunity to take it all in, to enjoy the experience, to understand what was happening. So I’ll break this down for you:
• Mayla comes out
• She is thrown, and I mean thrown, onto Keri’s chest
• I’m jerked over to cut the cord, and I mean jerked (hey big tall slow guy, you notice a pattern here??? Uhhhhh)
• I cut the cord, vaguely remember that experience because it was soo fast
• Mayla is taken from Keri to be cleaned up and “stuff”
• Mayla is given back to Keri
• Attending pediatric doc runs out of the room to get an oxygen machine
• Doc runs back in with oxygen, gone for probably seconds, and grabs Mayla back
• Keri says something to the effect of “something is wrong, go talk to her, take pictures, pray over her”
So I do that, but I’m super confused about what’s going on. The books didn’t tell me about this. I’m supposed to be celebrating, smoking cigars, cheering, clapping, crying, balloons, confetti, happy (where was the happy???). Instead of what the books gave us to expect, we got fear, lack of understanding, worry, wonder.
Minutes later, though seemed like a long time, the said Mayla wasn’t getting enough oxygen and they needed to take her to neo-natal for observation. Pardon my selfishness, but I hadn’t even touched her yet and Keri held her for just a minute or two, if that. By the time the doctor had finished with Keri, Mayla had already been moved via big plastic box to neo-natal and neither of us had placed eyes on her for more than 5 minutes. Then Keri and I were alone. We prayed, cried, prayed, and cried before the doctors came back in. That was a creepy moment because it was exactly what I would expect from a movie: the massive door swings open slowly (slow motion like), both doctors and the mid-wife come in, steps in sync, very serious looks on their face, and Keri and I are together at her bed, holding hands, praying, wondering. They tell us Mayla has an issue with her oxygen, she is not getting enough and they didn’t know why. They had already called the Children’s Hospital and were on their way to pick her up so they can run tests and figure out what was wrong. We were encouraged to go to neo-natal to see her, touch her, spend time with her, talk with her, take pictures, etc. Imagine, if you will, a handful of medical staff giving you this “encouragement” after the birth of your child… Not all that encouraging of encouragement, I don’t think so anyway. So we did, and we loved it. We cried, prayed, took pictures, touched her, loved her, then watched her be transported away, wondering if we would ever see her again.
You can probably guess that yes, we did see her again. The next three weeks at the Zürich Children’s Hospital were incredibly up and down. However, the show of love and support from our Zürich family eased the heartache and difficulties. We were so blessed by the outpouring; we’ll never have words enough to fully thank everyone who played a role. We left the hospital just three weeks after Mayla entered, went through two levels of intensive care, a round in neo-natal, open heart surgery, back to ICU, and back to neo-natal. The joy we had when we finally brought Mayla home is indescribable.
The following weeks were the most challenging of our lives. You see, the hospital was easy. We show up in the morning, nurses tell us how the night went, what she’s on/off, plan for the day, if one exists, we go see Mayla, and spend our day in and out of the ICU / neo-natal seeing her. Sure we had some tough times there where Mayla wasn’t responding well to something, feeding well, just irritable, AWFUL diaper rash, etc, but at the end of the day, we had to leave her in the hands of the incredible nurses and doctors and go back to our dorm room for some needed sleep. At home however, it was us vs. the world.
I used to have this theory that God gave everyone “easy” first kids, as a way of sort of dooping them into having more. This became my theory because it seemed as though almost everybody I knew had “easy” first children. Well, if Mayla was the “easy” one, I’m throwing in the towel…
Don’t get me wrong, I love Mayla with everything I am and everything I can muster, everyday. But no amount of reading could have prepared me for what was coming. In fact, it seemed as though Mayla’s first weeks home would not have fit into any book’s description: scientific, spiritual, or otherwise. It was tough, for both of us, but more so for me. Mayla has taught me a lot over this last year, but those first weeks/months, I learned just how selfish I really am. The reality for me was, I had some things I was looking forward to as a first-time father and I feel like I missed out on a lot of the traditional “firsts” for first-time fathers, and I’ll never get them back. That being said however, I was able to experience so many other things that “first-time” fathers, and 2nd, 3rd, 4th, & 5th too, don’t get to experience that I’m all good with it.
I saw the Lord work miracles everyday. I witnessed a miraculous recovery. I experienced the outpouring of love, support, encouragement, nourishment, compassion, and more, of God’s people, to the extent that I had never seen before. I watched as doctor’s, nurses, and the like study Mayla in amazement at her recovery and how she has grown over this last year, baffled that, aside from her scar, that is no indication of a surgery ever taking place. I experienced the unconditional love and grace of a child who needed, wanted, and deserved a father to step up and do battle with the demons trying to keep him down. I have seen how one person’s smile, can change thousands of peoples day, in the matter of a split second. I witnessed miraculous changes each and everyday, in my daughter, my wife, and myself. I experienced the love of Christ through my daughter and my wife.
In retrospect, I didn’t respond to fatherhood in a fashion that would be exemplary or role-modelish by any means. With that said, I have stepped up and taken the lead as father, lover, leader, spiritual head, teacher, and more, that my family needs. Over this last year I have been blessed in countless ways, and I mean that not figuratively, I really can’t count how many times I’ve been blessed as a result of being Mayla’s father. She has taught me a lot, and continues to do so.
While the start was not ideal in our book, by any means, it is exactly what the Good Doctor had on order for us. I’m thankful for our journey to date, and I’m thankful to continue on this journey, though it is challenging, sometimes bleak, and extremely confusing as of late. My two girls are the most important and precious people in the world to me, and I wouldn’t trade anything over the last year for something different.
Happy Birthday Mayla. Thank you! I love you! May you continue to grow ridiculously strong, and bless others with your joy, smiles, and disgusting slobbery kisses. You are such a gift to mommy and papi.
It was early in the morning, contractions where starting and so were my nerves, this was it, 9 months of getting bigger and bigger, paying attention to every single thing I ate, frequently visiting the bathroom, and 9 months dreaming of what our little girl would look like....it was here, it was happening. After having lost our first baby, I was elated to have made it this far, but had no idea what was in store for us.
On our first trip to the hospital early in the morning, my contractions just stopped, I could not believe it. They had been constant for a couple hours and then gone. I still went in to be checked, just hoping that maybe this whole 'having a baby' was so new to me that maybe I was 'feeling' it wrong, but that was not the case, and away we went. I walked, and walked and walked, I was determined to have our girl and have her SOON! The walking helped, helped because we actually had four important places to visit that day, and now we had the time to go. Unfortunately by the time we got done walking all over Zurich, I was feeing great, and no amount of jumping, walking, or running was going to bring me back to the hospital. So, weighted down by our 'hospital' bag and the pregnant blob I was, back home we went.
We climbed up the mini hill, up the fourty-two steps, and opened the door to our flat, and said, 'This is NOT what I was thinking when we left this morning.' We were disappointed, but knew it was not our timing, but the Lords. We napped, well Will napped and I tried to, but within an hour of laying down, those pesky little contractions were back. I ignored them...ha, I 'tried' to ignore them I mean, i figured it was just going to be another trick on us already, so why react. RIGHT....my heart started beating fast and
I started to time them, 10 minutes apart, 10 minutes apart, 10 minutes apart...WAHOO! Their back baby!
I was checked in at 7:00pm and had so much energy I was READY! By 11:30pm that energy was gone and I was not so ready any more. After being awake for 21 hours, and dilated to an 8, it was epidural time. The only good thing about the epidural, well two things related to each other, it helped the pain so much, that I got a few cat naps in. The bad news, it did what I was afraid of, slowed everything down DRASTICALLY! And after a couple hours, our little baby was complaining too which caused me to shift from side to side on the bed to see what worked best for her and her heart rate. She was not helping the cause though and in no hurry to come out, water was not breaking and even when they did break it, she still wanted nothing to do with entering the world, she knew what awaited her, we still had no idea.
At 5:02am, Mayla Grace Ellis entered the world. The next thing I know, she was THROWN at me and they were wiping her off. I looked down and saw them working so fast to clamp the chord and then handed Will the scissors and had him cut the chord. I missed seeing it as I was looking down at our girl and I knew right away.....I knew something was wrong. I had a gut feeling and I was scared.
The pediatrician then took her from my arms and they started checking her over..she made a few short cry’s that were the sweetest sound, as I watched them work my husband echoed words of praise and excitement in my ear as he shed tears of joy. I was emotionless, unable to process how I felt. They laid her back on my chest again, and I all I could notice was the pale coloring and blue tint to her skin, I knew something was wrong and instantly put up a wall between me and my daughter. I couldn’t bond with her and felt scared. After 2 short minutes, they took her from me again, and my heart broke, I knew this was not the way it was suppose to go. I told Will to go over by her and pray over her, something was not right. They had some different machines around her and were checking her oxygen. I could barely look over at her, it hurt and I was scared. I just kept praying and pleading with God that nothing was wrong with her, little did I know what awaited us.
In rolled an incubator looking box, and they took Mayla down to Neonatal, I laid there, motionless. Was it all a bad dream? What just happened? Where was my little girl. The pediatrician, doctor and midwife all came back in the room after what felt like days, doors swinging open slowly, as if it was the opening scene to a movie, I panicked and held my breathe, I wanted to close my ears too as I could tell by their faces, it was not good. I thought for sure she was gone. They informed us Mayla was only getting 85% oxygen on her own, and had either a heart or lung problem, but in all the tests they ran, they could find nothing wrong and they needed to send her to the children's hospital for further evaluation. Will and I clutched each other and lost it, I wanted to push the stop button.
We were able to visit Mayla in the Neonatal unit and touch her hand through the holes in the plastic 'box'. Our midwife informed us we should take as many photos as we could. Those words were not reassuring and I thought she knew something we didn't. Our time with her was short and ended abruptly when the children's hospital arrived to take Mayla by ambulance. I wanted to go, that was our little girl they were taking. We clung to each other and fell on our knees in prayer. Two hours went by before we heard anything and then finally the call. They had found the problem with Mayla, switched heart valves. They had already done a procedure on her within the hour she was born in neonatal that had helped keep her alive to this point, Praise The Lord, she was already our Miracle Mayla.
When I walked into the Intensive Care unit, I felt like I was visiting a ‘different’ baby, not mine, maybe one of a friend. I didn’t think she was mine, I wasn’t sure I wanted her to be mine. I looked at her and all I could think was I wanted to start over, I wanted to go back home, be pregnant again and deliver a different baby, not one that had a heart problem, not one that needed open heart surgery, not one that needed all these tubes and wires attached to her. I wanted the baby I had dreamed about, longed for, and been so excited about.
I left to go pump and it hit me like a two by four. Will could see our baby girl beneath the wires, what was wrong with me..i only saw wires, and tubes, and pain...I didn’t see a baby, not my baby. The baby I dreamed about was not the same one laying with those machines all around her, when would I wake up, when would it be over? I finished pumping and was scared, scared of my next move. How do I tell my husband all this, how do I share these feelings I’m having about my daughter, how does this get better? I was trying to gain my composure, pull myself together so no one would know of the freak out I was experiencing deep within my soul. This was all a bit hard as I was crashing fast and going deeper and deeper. I was just about to walk out when my husband walked in. He took one look at me and I obviously didn’t do a good job ‘pretending’ life was perfect. He saw the hurt, the pain, and the fear written all over me. He asked, ‘what’s wrong?’, and without hesitation the flood gates opened and in the navy chairs of the dim lit pumping room, we embraced and I spilled my whole hurting self to him. We held each other and sobbed like I have never cried before. Through the tender yet firm embrace of my husband I felt the Lord’s presence in that room. It was at that moment the Lord said, ‘I’m going to heal you just as I heal Mayla’.. I didn’t know how and I was still scared to death, but I knew the three of us could do this. We cried out to the Lord, and he heard our prayers, healing was beginning as I stood up, ready to face whatever was thrown our way.
If you followed our story while Mayla was in the Hospital, you know that Will wrote an update every night for facebook, so while he was doing that, I was compiling my own journal and updates, 42 pages long to be exact, and that's where a lot of this comes from. I've put myself back in a lot of those moments and it's brought up a lot of emotion for me. But we have come so far, based on how Mayla started, I never pictured her doing any of the things she is doing now, it was a protection thing, and one that took me a long time to let my guard down on. We are blessed to have her and blessed to have her story. We are fortunate she only had to have one surgery and won't need any more. She is a very special girl, Jesus knit her back together, and even though her heart is 'backwards' compared to others, she is perfect! It's been a fun journey thus far, and a lot of you have been along for the ride since day one, and we thank you more than you will ever know. She lights up our every day and we continue to pray she takes that beautiful smile of hers, the Love that has been poured on her, and she shares it with the world. God performs miracles every day, and Mayla is proof of that.
Hello friends, it's Miss Mayla. Today (well September 6th) I'm a big 1 year old. And I get to celebrate my birthday in Florida. I'm keeping mommy and papi busy these days with trying to run from them, be independent, and move non stop from one thing to the next. I love to eat everything mommy gives me and getting my shoes on to go outside brings a big smile to my face. I hope you have a sunshine filled day and remember, Jesus loves you!
