It’s Friday, July 29th, 2011 and I’m a father

It’s been an absolute whirlwind week.

My daughter, Reese McClain Nichols, was born at 10:43am Monday, July 25th, 2011.

I someday plan to write a post about her birth, the amazing 10 hours we had from first contraction till delivery, but right now I just can’t. As I type this, my precious daughter is still in the hospital. She’s sitting in the special care unit at Baptist East Hospital. They’re not sure everything that is wrong with her but they’re pretty sure it’s an infection of some kind. She’s had a wild few days but she’s doing so much better! She has to stay in the hospital till next Wednesday so she can take a 7 day regiment of antibiotics. Also we must wait for more tests to come in and make sure everything checks out ok.

So now we wait and it’s unbelievably hard. To drive home without her and drive back to the hospital to see her is absolutely excruciating. We’re very lucky in that our hospital lets us board in a room here and we do sleep here at night, but we go home at times during the day to shower, rest, and maybe just feel a little normal. Elizabeth and I have had our ups and downs emotionally but we’ve been very reassured by the staff here at the hospital. Reese’s doctor is a neonatologist and she’s AWESOME. Also, her nurses are absolute rockstars. She gets a new nurse pretty much every 12 hours and each one goes above and beyond to make Elizabeth and I feel comfortable. It’s hard to pick a favorite, but I’ve taken a liking to a nurse named Janice. She’s had Reese from 7pm till 7am 2 nights in a row and Elizabeth and I both loved her. She’s been working at Baptist East in Labor & Delivery for 40 years!!!!! I was born at this same hospital 31 years ago and told her it’s not often I meet someone who probably changed my diaper. She said “Honey, I’ve changed half this city’s diapers!” She’s a lot of fun and definitely looks out for Elizabeth and I. She won’t be back till Sunday night, but I look forward for her to take care of Reese again. I slept much better last night knowing Janice was watching my little girl.

Now that being said, there are many other nurses here that we’ve taken a liking too and have been so reassuring during this difficult time. Susan was the first nurse Reese had in the special delivery unit and I went into see her just a few hours after they took her back to the unit. Susan explained everything to me and as I watched my daughter hooked up to monitors beeping, oxygen through her nose, wires going everywhere, and her chest moving very rapidly…..I just lost it. I cried there in front of Susan like a litte boy. She came over and put her arm around me and asked me the best question ever. “Are you a man of faith?” I told I was, that God knew this baby before she was created and that he has a plan for her and that plan was to give glory to him. I wiped away the tears and said a prayer thanking God for speaking to me through Susan at that moment. I could honestly write a paragraph about each and everyone of the nurses we’ve encountered these last few days. They’re all so special and do a job I could never dream of doing.  We’re truly forever grateful to them.

So now we keep praying, we keep feeding, we keep hugging, and we keep kissing our little girl. We know we’ll get to take her home soon. We just ask God to continue to lift us up and we thank him for these amazing doctors and nurses as they watch over the blessing he gave us in our daughter Reese.

I’ll post more soon and pictures!