The Sporting Life: Daughter's birth presents life's toughest challenge

Brent Lawrence is columnist and copy editor for the Springfield Business Journal.

Would you take a bath while using your hairdryer? Why not? It saves time and there's only a chance you'll be electrocuted.

While you're pondering that question, I'm going to let you peer into a window of my life.

The past two months have been the toughest in my life. There's no exaggeration in that statement.

My wife Danielle was pregnant and due Oct. 15. However, in early July she developed pre-eclampsia, a condition which increases the mother's blood pressure and causes other problems, which are potentially fatal to both mother and baby.

My wife was put in the hospital at 26 gestational weeks, with hope that bed rest could keep the pre-eclampsia from advancing, and we would be able to hold off giving birth until at least 32 weeks. We couldn't.

On July 23, doctors were forced to deliver our baby girl Macy Jae at 28 weeks. She was a whopping 1 pound, 10 ounces and 12 1/2 inches long.

Macy Jae immediately went into the neonatal intensive care unit. Her first two weeks went well.

Then the roller coaster hit its first big drop.

Macy's oxygen requirement shot up to more than 90 percent. (We breathe about 20 percent oxygen as adults.) The doctors and nurses couldn't figure out what was the matter, but they were obviously worried.

Away from my wife, I asked one nurse if it was life-threatening for Macy. She said: "No, not at this moment. But the machine is doing all it can do. She has to start getting better soon, or there's not much more we can do for her."

Needless to say, I was a mess. My daughter was dying right in front of me and there wasn't a thing I could do about it except pray.

Even though my wife knew something was wrong, I opted to wait before divulging all the details, hoping that something would change. After six long hours and many tears, I got the best news possible pneumonia was causing the problem. At least with Macy's having pneumonia, the doctors knew what to do.

The pneumonia has since been conquered.

She's up to 2 pounds, 10 ounces and is doing as well as can be expected for such a premature baby. Her lungs aren't fully developed and she doesn't have the necessary size to produce enough red blood cells to fight off all the potential infections. The machines that keep her alive ventilator and oxygen also do damage. It's a life-or-death balancing act that well-trained doctors and nurses perform on a daily basis.

Macy is expected to stay in the NICU until early October.

The doctors and nurses have been wonderful. They balance their job of taking care of Macy with baby-sitting her parents. It's a tough job. We thank them for their care and efforts. They really are the best.

Now that brings me back to the question about using your hairdryer while in the bathtub.

It's a simple risk vs. reward question. I'm guessing the risk of electrocution and death is much greater that the possible reward of saving a few minutes in the morning. Right?

Then following the same logic, stay away from alcohol, cigarettes, drugs, amusement park rides and anything else which is potentially hazardous during pregnancy. If your wife or daughter is pregnant, make sure she stays away from these hazards.

The risk is not worth the reward.

Get prenatal care see a doctor early and often. There are programs that can help if cost is an issue. Eat right, take the vitamins and do what you're told.

Sometimes you can do everything you are supposed to do my wife did and bad things still happen.

But trust me on this one having a child in the neonatal intensive care unit is one roller coaster you don't want to be on. If there's anything you can do to reduce the risk of putting your baby in NICU, do it. There is no reward that is worth the risk.

Service meter

My earlier column about the lack of quality service has brought many comments from business owners. Some have asked me to try their business and let them know about their quality of service.

Sounds good to me. Starting with my next column, I will give a quality service report on a business I used the previous week. Kind of like a restaurant review, except I'll be rating the service. If the service is less than glowing, I'll talk to the manager and see how they resolve the problem.

I won't take requests on which businesses to evaluate, because service is something that should be the same for everybody.