150 Hours and Counting

“Sean, I think it’s time.”

The human body is amazing. In a moment of crisis — a true “fight or flight” situation — the organs in your body involuntarily make rapid changes to prepare you for whatever comes next. Your body decides that survival is now the top priority. Nothing else matters.

Alarms begin to go off in your brain. Signals are sent to your adrenal glands, which flood your body with hormones. These hormones are designed to speed everything up: your heart rate increases, your blood pressure rises, and your pupils dilate, sharpening your vision.

With your heart now pumping faster, blood flow is redirected from its usual path. Resources are allocated. The heart, lungs, brain, and large muscles reap the benefits of this internal reorganization, while less blood is sent to systems focused on the long term, like digestion and immune response. Anything the body deems nonessential is temporarily put on hold.

While this is what is happening in my body — mostly out of sheer panic — my wife’s body is going through something similar, but for an entirely different reason. Her body is preparing for childbirth.

In the delivery room, my wife is the heart, the lungs, and the brain. I, on the other hand, am more like the appendix.

For a little while, you feel like your presence is important. There is a lot of waiting. Maybe “important” isn’t the right word. Something closer to “useful.”

Then things really start to happen, and that’s when you become full-on appendix. The goal is to stay out of the way. To let those who truly matter do what they need to do — and, most importantly, to let your wife do something that can only be described as a miracle.

It’s very odd being right in the middle of something so big, and yet being so firmly planted on the sideline. Is this what the third-string quarterback on a Super Bowl–winning team feels like?

There were even a few times when I asked the nurse to “let me know if there’s anything I can help out with.” Like she was going to turn around and say, “Yeah, actually, can you draw some blood and send it down to the lab for testing? And then why don’t you scrub up for the main event while you’re at it?”

In the body’s times of crisis, the major organs are clearly the focus — but the appendix doesn’t just up and leave. It sticks around and, I like to think, offers the other organs some moral encouragement. “You’re doing great, heart.” “Keep it up, lungs.”

I guess in life, not every important role is a leading one.

Mary Patricia McVeigh was born on January 9 at 12:16 a.m. She’s perfect, and both mom and baby are doing great.

Since we’ve been home from the hospital, my wife is still acting as the heart, the lungs, and the brain. She is an absolutely incredible mother. We’re out of crisis mode now (though there are still occasional moments of panic), and blood pressure has returned to a cool 120/80.

I’m still the appendix, but I have not burst.

I’ve learned how to change a mean diaper, and I’m working my way through singing every song that mentions “Mary,” which is no small feat … unlike the actual Mary, who, at the moment, has quite small feet.

As of press time, I will have been a dad for just under 150 hours. That is to say, I am certainly no expert. But I think I’m starting to get a feel for my role.

Not unlike the appendix, it won’t always be showy. But I’ll be there, telling everyone, “You’ve got this,” whenever I can.