Pictures    by Rob Finch

Alcina Mae

7 weeks before she was scheduled for arrival, our daughter made a grand entrance.

On March 11th, Fran gave birth to a baby girl. Her name is Alcina Mae Finch. “Alcie” for short.

We spent 17 days of heaven and hell in the NICU.

Heaven because we had a little girl, epic in her fragility, cared for by the best nurses we could imagine. Loving, caring, professional people doing what I now think of as God’s work.

Hell because every single day we walked away from the building without our daughter. She was stuck in a clear plastic box, attached to wires and monitors that made screaming noises when her heart didn’t beat fast enough or her breathing stopped. Even though the doctors were always confident in her “Viability,” it is the single worst word in the English language.

Don’t worry, I do have a hint of perspective. I know many others have it worse, so much worse – I have photographed my fair share of them over the years. On the continuum of medical urgency we’re way at the bottom. But, it’s our life, our urgency, our daughter. And when it’s your life, all rational perspective goes out the window.

Alcie is now out of the NICU and home with us. For good and bad there are no monitors and no beeping. I check her breathing constantly and spend every waking moment thinking about her, looking at her, wondering, what the hell do I do now?

Everyone told me that becoming a parent would change my life. Honestly I did believe them. But, I had no idea what exactly that meant.

My world shuttered. My mind, previously a swirling chaotic train-wreck, found a focus in the matter of seconds. In an instant, a missing part of me woke from dormancy. There was Immediacy. Clarity. Panic. Love like I have never felt.

What words do I impart to a baby girl born into this world, this family, this time in history – when everything around her brilliant shining self is going down the tubes? It will take a much smarter and more eloquent person than I to find them. Whatever words I do have seem overused, over emotional and altogether dumb. Yet, I am on a quest for them. Not that they will help, but because in the brief passage of time since her surprise birth I have recommitted myself to doing my best as a husband, a journalist and certainly as a father.