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Mikey MacDonald - Jan 16, 2006
Chloe was born 6 years ago, at 9:38am, Sunday Morning, January 16th, 2000. The night before, Nicola and I ate a huge pasta dinner at Maggianos, after going to the Sport and Health gym to workout. (That'll pop'em out) Chloe decided to make her way out at 1am the next morning. Nicki woke me up (as i was passed out on the living room floor) telling me her water broke! We were well prepared, except the bottom half of my body was asleep, so I had to "army crawl" to the bedroom to get the bag, and get dressed. We had time to stop at the the gas station to pick up a disposable camera. (They were on sale from the 2000 new years eve). After a 6 hour labor of eating ice chips, and an epidural that only numbed Nicolas right leg, Chloe came out at George Washington University Memorial Hospital, in our Nations Capitol. She spent the next 3 weeks of her life at Children's Hospital in Northeast DC, because they found a cyst on the back of her neck that communicated brain fluid, and needed to be removed. The issue however, was that after it was removed, she was not absorbing brain fluid properly, and it was building up in her brain ventricles. So they operated twice on her brain to install a "shunt", which is essentially a small "pen cap" sized piece of hardware that opens a valve when fluids build up in her brain, and drains it through tubing that leads to her stomach lining. SO, 3 weeks, 3 brain surgeries, and almost $300,000 later, baby Chloe finally came home with us (I'll never forget that day). Some other things worth mentioning, Nicola finished a project for school THE AFTERNOON of her giving birth to Chloe. I went on paternity leave only a week after I started my new job as a Senior Account Manager at an Internet Start-up called E-Commerce Industries. We had sleepless nights in the NICU, cussing out nurses and Doctors at 4am, a 105 mile round trip commute in DC traffic (no less) to work, and taking semesters off of school to make ends meet (only to make up for them during the summers), all at age 19, the 3 of us made it through ok I'd say. Nicola is starting Dental School at USC in LA this year, after graduating George Washington University with a 3.9 GPA, I own a small, but growing consulting firm that is certified and approved by Microsoft, and MOST importantly (and what we'll celebrate next weekend at the National Zoo in DC) Chloe is Happy and Healthy leading her Kindergarten class in more ways than one this year. Already well on her way to becoming President of the United States of America in year 2036, so she can live in that nice little White House she drove by in an ambulance when she was merely 3 HOURS old. DADDY LOVES YOU CHLOE!
Chloe was born 6 years ago, at 9:38am, Sunday Morning, January 16th, 2000. The night before, Nicola and I ate a huge pasta dinner at Maggianos, after going to the Sport and Health gym to workout. (That'll pop'em out) Chloe decided to make her way out at 1am the next morning. Nicki woke me up (as i was passed out on the living room floor) telling me her water broke! We were well prepared, except the bottom half of my body was asleep, so I had to "army crawl" to the bedroom to get the bag, and get dressed. We had time to stop at the the gas station to pick up a disposable camera. (They were on sale from the 2000 new years eve). After a 6 hour labor of eating ice chips, and an epidural that only numbed Nicolas right leg, Chloe came out at George Washington University Memorial Hospital, in our Nations Capitol. She spent the next 3 weeks of her life at Children's Hospital in Northeast DC, because they found a cyst on the back of her neck that communicated brain fluid, and needed to be removed. The issue however, was that after it was removed, she was not absorbing brain fluid properly, and it was building up in her brain ventricles. So they operated twice on her brain to install a "shunt", which is essentially a small "pen cap" sized piece of hardware that opens a valve when fluids build up in her brain, and drains it through tubing that leads to her stomach lining. SO, 3 weeks, 3 brain surgeries, and almost $300,000 later, baby Chloe finally came home with us (I'll never forget that day). Some other things worth mentioning, Nicola finished a project for school THE AFTERNOON of her giving birth to Chloe. I went on paternity leave only a week after I started my new job as a Senior Account Manager at an Internet Start-up called E-Commerce Industries. We had sleepless nights in the NICU, cussing out nurses and Doctors at 4am, a 105 mile round trip commute in DC traffic (no less) to work, and taking semesters off of school to make ends meet (only to make up for them during the summers), all at age 19, the 3 of us made it through ok I'd say. Nicola is starting Dental School at USC in LA this year, after graduating George Washington University with a 3.9 GPA, I own a small, but growing consulting firm that is certified and approved by Microsoft, and MOST importantly (and what we'll celebrate next weekend at the National Zoo in DC) Chloe is Happy and Healthy leading her Kindergarten class in more ways than one this year. Already well on her way to becoming President of the United States of America in year 2036, so she can live in that nice little White House she drove by in an ambulance when she was merely 3 HOURS old. DADDY LOVES YOU CHLOE!