I still don’t know he’ll make it
Four days ago, I got up at 3:21 AM to get ready with my wife to report for our scheduled induction at 5:00 AM. It took her about 5 hours to reach the full throes of contractions. It took her about 5 minutes of labor to deliver our son, and it took about 15 seconds for us to ask “Is his breathing ok?”
Intensive Care Nursery
After he was delivered, he was rushed to the neonatal intensive care unit. Since then, we have survived. We have hoped, we have hurt, we have worried, we have spent hours communicating to medical staff and family, we have eaten, and we have slept. Composing this is probably only the second time since this started that either one of us stopped to rest and reflect.
I wouldn’t tell my wife this now, but I still don’t know, with high confidence, that our son will survive. There are so many things that can go wrong between now and the day we might part with him from the Intensive Care Nursery. However, to leave this message with that expression of doubt would be to do my son and my wife a monumental disservice. To neglect to share their individual displays of strength, grit, sacrifice, and perseverance would only be half the story.
Prognosis
My son has been diagnosed with (infant) pulmonary hypertension. This means the blood pressure in his lungs is too high. It is not clear to me if this is a result of some other behavior or fact of his anatomy. My suspicion is that science often doesn’t know the exact cause here, and there could be many different causes. His anatomy looks healthy and sound, at least according to his echocardiogram. What I do know is that I’ve been told by the physician and nurse practitioners overseeing his care that pulmonary hypertension is not like the condition of the same name in adults, and that kids often resolve the symptoms naturally. This has been our understanding of his condition for the last 56 or so hours.
He has exhibited immense strength. He is no longer at immediate risk of oxygen desaturation. He still can desaturate, but he can be stabilized quickly with only attention and minimal adjustments to his forced oxygen percentages if necessary. He is eating and pooping and peeing. His blood-gas levels are doing much better.
Update
Sunday, January 4, 2026. Two days after initial draft.
He has made significant improvement. His blood-gas results have been great for several days (meaning he is exhaling sufficient carbon dioxide now), and his oxygen saturation levels have remained high (enough). He has been able to be progressively weaned off high levels of supplemental oxygen through his CPAP. He is nearly able to try breathing on his own. What remains is to evaluate his eventual echocardiogram, chest x-ray, his ability to breathe on his own, and then finally to teach him how to feed either from the breast or from the bottle. He has been progressively and consistently eating all the milk he is administered via his feeding tube.
Reflections
At the time I first drafted this, I was probably about 10 hours past the first really positive update we’d had during his intensive care. I was not ready to believe that he was through the woods. I am not, still, because of how there always lurks the possibility of something unforeseen occurring. Receiving bad news now would be crushing, but thinking all is well and then receiving bad news now would be destructive to me. For my own sake, I have not been able to let my guard down. It is exhausting.
For the last 3 days, I’ve climbed back into my car after visiting him in the NICU some time around 6:00 PM. Each time, after I have turned on the car and plugged in my phone, I release several deep exhales in a row. They come from a place within me I didn’t know they could reside. They are the result of me half holding my breath for the hours I’ve been with him. I spend probably 75% of my time at his station watching his oxygen saturation, heart rate, and respiration rates on his primary monitor. Tonight I spent the first couple of hours holding him, sweating and anxious about whether or not I was causing his SpO2 to idle around 92.5% – I find that any time it’s less than 94% I grow increasingly anxious until it comes up. My wife has a different experience than me in the NICU. Although I haven’t seen her there since the first day, because we have since then alternated shifts, I know she is far more comfortable there than she is when she’s not. My experience has been different. When I am home, I have a gnawing, deep anxiousness, but I can tell that part of me, a part of me I feel immensely guilty about, is more comfortable not being able to see his moment-by-moment vitals.
This experience has shaped me in ways I may not ever be able to entirely identify. Certainly, I will have gained an intimate perspective on what it’s like to experience postpartum parental trauma like this. I now know what it’s like to watch your moments-old child turn blue. I know what it’s like to hold him for the first time and then, only minutes later, have to quickly lay him down as his oxygen saturation hits 54%. However, I suspect I’ll be more guarded, more protective, and, probably, more anxious than I was before. For better and worse, there was a me before him, and a me after.
Warriors
My son is named Magnus. It took us months to settle on that name. Its meaning in Latin is “great”. After choosing it, I found myself worrying that it was the wrong choice. I don’t want my son to feel like he has to be anything special. I don’t want to be arrogant in naming my son “great”. I just wanted him to like his name and be proud of it. During his gestation, my concerns were amplified by the fact that he was consistently measuring in the ~3-4th percentile compared to most developing fetuses, causing fear in me that he would always be small, and that he’d be made fun of for having the name Magnus. It seemed like fate was mocking our choice in his name.
Magnus has proven that thinking patently wrong. He is great. He has defeated death more than once. He has fought, breath by breath, for the life that awaits him. He has fought for his mother, his two sisters, and for me – to one day know us and know the love we are aching to give him. He is just like his mother: resilient, strong, and steadfast.
My wife has been the fountain of hope I have not. She has loved him with every whisper of her mind and body since the day she conceived. She has set her alarms, she has pumped her milk, she has cleaned the house, she has annotated his labels, and she has been by his side every moment she could. She has inspired me, and I wouldn’t bat an eye in surprise to learn that her very presence – her smell, her warmth, hell, her biological particulate – has strengthened his resolve.
Tomorrow
Magnus is not home yet. He may not be home for days, or perhaps weeks. I will not breathe out my full breath until we walk through our front door and I can cut my hospital bracelet, dated 12/30/2025, from my wrist. I am sure he will do it, but I need to do what I can to get him there.
To my son: I love you. You’ve changed me. I promise I will continue to change, however you may need me to, to be the father you deserve. The Universe brought you here, now, and it is yours to learn. Be Great to no one but yourself.