You're Fifteen (You're Beautiful, and You're Mine, at Least For Now)

I only had a wife for 17 days. As most of you girls know, according to wedding etiquette a woman is a bride for the entirety of her first year of her marriage. Well, 17 days after Jeannie and I had our first anniversary, our daughter Laura was born and it was on that day that I learned that I no longer had a wife. I was, instead, merely married to somebody's mom.

Laura, our babe, came into this world fifteen years ago this morning.

I was scared to death the night before she was born. Doctors had told us they would perform a c-section the following morning if the drugs they were giving Jeannie failed to induce birth. Laura wasn't due for almost two more months and we still had a couple of birthing classes left to go. The last of them involved a tour of the hospital maternity ward. That evening as I sat in Jeannie's hospital room, the tour happened to come by. I jumped right in. The tour ended at the nursery and I was disheartened as I looked at all the newborns because they didn't do a thing for me. Nothing. And I thought, "My God, you are going to have one of those tomorrow. Is this how you are going to feel?" I was worried about it all night and I had all night to worry. Jeannie never did fall asleep and I stayed up with her.

As I said, Laura was a bit of a preemie. At birth, which is to say at the time she was yanked out of the womb by a surgeon, she was a little blueish in hue. She flunked her APGAR test -- among the questions: "Is the baby breathing properly?" that the nurses give all the little babies as soon as they are born -- and I am pleased to report that The APGAR is the only test she has ever flunked. However, since she was not breathing properly, she was whisked her away to the neo-natal intensive care unit with me walking beside the stretcher. The little, tiny baby stretcher. I left poor Jeannie to fend for herself in the operating theatre with the words, "Gotta, go. We've got a baby to look out for here!"

They put a little baby oxegyn mask on her tiny little face and I remember I felt badly because, even though they were using the smallest one they had, it was still scrunching up one of her eyes. They put her in an incubator and told me she'd be in there for about 5 hours. I was there when they took her out later in the day and I'll never forget it. She was the pinkest, most beautiful little thing I'd ever seen and I never had another worry. I took one look at her and said to myself, "That kid is as healthy as a horse."

Laura was in the hospital for nine days. I remember I played hockey one night and drove straight from the rink to the hospital in my wet hockey clothes because I didn't want to miss her midnight feeding. I remember that you had to scrub your hands for ten minutes before you could go in the nursery. One day, the woman next to me only scrubbed for eight-and-a-half and I called her on it. She was not happy. I did not care.

I remember the night before we were to bring her home, Jeannie and I were sitting in the hospital parking lot. There was an astronomical display for us: A crescent moon with three stars, perhaps planets, who knows, inside the crescent. A sign, it seemed to us. I said to my wife, or rather, I said to Laura's mom, "I don't want you to take this the wrong way, but I never knew you could love anything as much as I love that little girl." Jeannie said, "I feel that same way."

We've always been on that same page. I have been proud to be her father every single day of these past 15 years. von Ebers once wrote of his little girl that he was as proud of her as any father could be of his daughter. He phrased it exactly right. I am, too. Of mine that is. I'm sure Dave's daughter is terrific and all, but it's a whole 'nother ballgame when it's yours. That's the lesson of the hospital nursery.