The Arrival of Reyn - The Story of My First Son

The decision to have kids was a big deal for Alexandra and me. Both of us love little kids. I love playing games with them, making up crazy stories and being free of adult rules. Plus the idea of taking my kid surfing one day made my heart pump.  But for a long time we both were in such precarious states.

In the beginning, I felt scared that I would have to support a family financially, that I wasn’t able to do so, and also worried what impact it could have on my writing too. For Alexandra, her job as a prosecutor, with a stint as a juvenile prosecutor, affected her well-being to the extent it made her re-think if she even wanted kids.

But after years together, Alexandra transitioned out of her prosecutor job to become a teacher. I held down jobs and gained confidence that I could support a child, while growing as a writer. I began to see being a father not as an obstacle to being a writer, but the path that I must take to be the writer that I want to be. I remembered hearing stories as a kid and how deeply touched I was by them. I imagined what it would be like to be the teller of tales, rather than the listener. And so, we began to see past the fear and to what really mattered to us: family.

Alexandra and I planned on having our first child after her second year at Portola High School, which would complete her teaching credential, and give her the choice to take time off from working for a few years and provide her ease of entry back into the workplace with a full credential.

But late in 2016, Al’s mom Doña was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, which comes with it a high mortality rate. Diagnoses this significant don't just affect the patient, but the whole family. I remember nights holding Al as she sobbed uncontrollably at the inconceivable idea of living a life without Doña in it. During the initial weeks of treatment, the conversation of kids came up. With the uncertainty of her mom’s condition, the desire to make sure that her mom saw her grandchild became so strong and clear that we both agreed that we should go for it.

We were fortunate in conception, making love seemed so purposeful, and we succeeded in the first few weeks of trying. Al seemed to know we had conceived so early, prior to missing her first period even. The beautiful part, in addition to us getting the news that we’d be adding to the family, was that her mom’s spirits picked up dramatically, as her only daughter would give birth.

Though her mom’s spirits picked up, Doña’s condition only increased in uncertainty as she started to miss treatments due to low platelet levels. One afternoon in the spring, I went on a walk with Doña through the South Laguna neighborhood. She opened up, describing the additional findings, how she should have probably taken another experimental trial that was better suited for her situation. On top of all this, both of her doctors left the hospital where she was receiving treatment, and she felt abandoned in the time of greatest vulnerability in her life.  I didn’t have any answers, so I listened most of the time. When she asked for my opinion, I repeated her fears that she was in a scary situation, but I added that she was almost finished with treatment and should probably see it through until the end. In the meantime, she could get a second opinion, which would give her a head start if the cancer didn’t go into remission. I don’t think my words consoled her much at the time.

A few weeks later, at week 13 in the pregnancy, we had the gender reveal party with a cake with hidden frosting to signal the gender. For my family, boys were something of a tradition, as he would be the 10th Murphy boy in a row. Me, my brother, my dad, my uncle, my uncle’s four boys (his wife kept hoping for a girl, always providing androgynous names), and my grandfather. He had an older sister, the last Murphy girl, and she was born 100 years ago. My mom dreamed of traveling to Russia with her granddaughter. So there was extra tension in whether our child would be a boy or girl. Alexandra bought a cake from Susie Cakes, the same place that created our wedding cake. We had over our family—her mom, dad, grandma, my mom, and dad—and I knew that we were having a boy even before the reveal. When Alexandra cut the cake, the kitchen knife pulled out with blue frosting, my dad raised his arms and said, “The curse lives on!” We laughed. The excitement of gender added specificity that made the whole creation of life feel more real. Labels aren’t always restrictive, they can be life giving.

We began to think of names, and I shared with her that I liked Oscar, Ciaran, Seamus… good Irish names. I was particularly fond of Oscar, as he is part of Irish Folklore, the valiant grandson of Finn MacCool. Alexandra had other names she liked: Theodore, Oliver, Henry. I didn’t like how English those sounded. Where we did agree was on our love of family, and so we bantered around names. An early favorite was Reyn Robert, based on my brother, her brother, and dad’s name. The name fell out of favor quickly because Alexandra thought it would be weird to call her son her brother-in-law’s name.  I told her about the way my grandfather was named: by the maiden name of his mother. I loved Al’s maiden name Harman, and it had a cache in the Laguna area. We ended up pairing it with my mom’s maiden name--which had disappeared in our family--and now our son was Harman Miller Murphy. It was early, we told many people, and revelled in the excitement as we planned for life with our son.

Alexandra took great care of herself during the pregnancy—eating well, sleeping extra on the weekends—and only suffered from lower levels of energy as well as the swelling in her feet and legs. The swelling became more persistent and extreme as pregnancy progressed. But the health of Harman never waned, even when Alexandra took a volleyball to the stomach while coaching her high school team. We both rushed to the hospital from our offices to check, which did give us a good trial run in case of an emergency birth.

Doña was officially declared in remission in the late summer, and we collectively released a huge sigh of relief. She’d be around for the baby. Alexandra and Doña celebrated by traveling to Maine together, a beautiful mother-daughter trip. It was marked by funny conversations in the planning stages. Alexandra seemed to throw out a lot of ideas, but Doña really wanted to go to Maine. Something familiar and yet unfamiliar about Maine pulled her there, a place where the two of them could spend intimate time together. I don’t know what they spoke about on the trip, but it seemed like Doña didn’t want it to be officially about going into remission, and so I wonder how much of their conversations would have been indirect, almost like father and son conversations, marked by a shared interest as a proxy for intimacy.

During that time, I had my first short story published, one that I had written years ago, but centered around a man who initially couldn’t comprehend how to live with his child, only to find that his child was what would help him guide himself through the tough times in life. There is a moment in the story where I write that hugging a child makes you feel like they are the real center of you, it is a part that feels the most alive in the story. With my son on the way, the fact that that specific story was published, felt like an amazing omen.

As Alexandra came home, and reached full term and full weight—45 pounds more than before—we started to wonder about due dates. I had said that, based on no rational reason, that I thought he’d arrive on November 4th, despite his Halloween due date. Alexandra thought he’d come on the third.

Though she started to doubt the name Harman Miller Murphy. We went over the list she had kept from the beginning of the year, hovering over Reyn Robert for long enough that I thought I needed to call my brother to ask if it would be okay if Alexandra and I named our son after him. “It’s not a huge chance, but it’s a real option,” I told him. He was honored and choked up.

As the due date arrived, both of us prepared for life with our son and time off work. Alexandra created lesson plans for her long-term substitute teacher, and I had my work to handle, as well as planning around a board meeting for USC’s Wrigley Institute of Environmental Studies on the 24th and 25th of October.

The day of the board meeting was a beautiful, scorching day, 108 degrees in the end of October. As I drove across the Terminal Island Bridge to the Southern California Marine Institute, Alexandra called. “My mucus plug fell out during 5th period and my water broke,” she told me. “I have to go to the doctor as soon as possible.”

“Okay, I’m going to turn around and I can be there in an hour,” I said.

“Wait, are you sure? Let me talk to the doctor first,” she said. “I know how much this means to you.”

It was a simple decision. When I arrived I thanked all the people for welcoming me to the board, but that I’d have to leave for the birth of my son. I got a chance to see Ken Nealson, the director, Phil Hagenagh the chair, and some of the staff members that I had been coordinating with. They gave me a gift—3 USC Trojan onesies—and again I thanked them before they departed and I headed back to Alexandra. But right before the Terminal Island Bridge, Alexandra called me back and said that it had been a false alarm. “I still have my amniotic fluid, and my water didn’t break.”

“That’s fine, but I’m still coming home,” I said.

“No, please go, you still have time,” she said.

I made an illegal u-turn with the same irrational speed that I used to make that decision and headed to the dock.

The staffers and board members present were surprised to see me, especially with my gear. I explained that it had been a false alarm. Megan Hamilton, the coordinator for the Wrigley, still seemed nervous. I didn't blame her. The last staffer arrived, Lance Ignon, and we left the port.

The ocean was remarkably calm, the winds so still, and we made great time. The board members spoke of the new plans, chit chatted about my son, wondered about the Dodger World Series game that night.

I felt like I was in my element in this location, with these people, more than I had ever felt in any other professional environment other than at readings.

And then I got the call: Alexandra was having sharp pains in her stomach. She didn’t know what it was, didn’t want to scare me, but also didn’t want me to leave because she knew how much this trip meant for me. Concerned for my wife and son, I slept terribly.

In the morning, Alexandra called me again to let me know that she had leaked and, not knowing if her water had broken, that she was on the way to the hospital. She promised me that she would call me back once she’d seen her midwife and figured out what was going on.

Knowing that I may have to get back to Orange County as fast as possible, I showered and packed my bags. I then received a text message from my mom saying, “Check your options.” I then texted Megan Hamilton, the coordinator for the Wrigley, and told her that it was a very likely that I’d have to leave as soon as possible. She contacted the helicopter company, looked into boats back to the island, either with board members, Catalina Express, and staff. Each option didn’t seem great. Helicopter would be expensive and would drop me off in San Pedro instead of the Southern California Marine Institute.  The Catalina Express would get me there only an hour earlier, and not at the same port. WAB board member Steve Scully said he could send us back with his captain. Despite my normal, pressing anxieties, I felt a sense of calm that I would make it.

After about 45 minutes of troubleshooting, Lauren Oudin found a solution. Her husband Trevor was taking the early boat back from the mainland after watching the Dodgers first World Series game, the only worry was how hung-over he was.

A few months back on my visit to the island, Trevor had taken me on an adventure to one of the only surfable beaches on Catalina, Ben Weston. It required about 35 minute drive on a dirt road and a 15 minute hike down the spine of a cliff to a black sand beach. Simple adventures like that are great ways to create bonds with people, and so it was with Trevor. I looked forward to him driving me back.

I said my goodbyes to the board members, faculty and staff on the island and jumped on a twin engine fishing boat, with only seats for two. Lauren handed Trevor some water, coffee, and a foamer in a styrofoam cup--in the emergency that he was extremely hung over--but Trevor seemed excited to help me back to the island.

The morning was glorious. Sheet glass waters and the golden sunrise made for an incredibly peaceful departure.

“Look, there’s a shark,” Trevor said. “When it’s this glassy, you can actually see their fins.” I never caught a glimpse of that shark, my eyes not as acutely attuned to the open ocean as his.

As we sped through the calm waters and could see the breakwater outside the port, I noticed a few dolphins jumping through our wake.

“They’re beautiful,” I said.

“I see so many that I’ve gotten used to them,” Trevor said.

But then a few more jumped out of the water, and a few dozen more, and shortly our entire wake for thousands of yards was filled with a thousand jumping dolphins.

Upon reaching the docks, I shared with Alexandra how special my boat trip over was. For her part, Alexandra caught me up on the situation, letting me know that she since she had been admitted, that progress had been slow and so they had made a plan that by 5 pm if nothing had happened, Alexandra would start to take Pitocin as a means to speed up labor. I worried about her because she wanted a natural birth as much as possible.

In the previous weeks, Alexandra developed a vision for motherhood that she wanted to become a reality. We had made plans with the midwife, interviewed multiple doulas (basically a labor assistant coach to the midwife), and Alexandra methodically made the decision that she'd like to deliver without pain medication or epidural, vaginally, and ideally with her delivering her own baby. This ideal also included a “golden hour” with skin to skin contact right after birth, followed by breastfeeding as soon as possible.

However, as the first day in the hospital went on, very little happened. We had enough time have real conversations with the nurses. The first nurse, Judi, lived in Laguna Beach in Canyon Acres and her son played on the volleyball team with Alexandra’s older brother Ryan. She’s the exact type of nurse you want for your first birth: experienced, calm, direct, and warm. While looking at the heart rates, she pointed to the heart monitor and said, “You have the happiest baby on the floor.”

Of course, we  swelled with pride, and she explained her comment further. Heart rates are supposed to accelerate with stimuli like contractions and touching, and that our baby responded well. Judi had a great laugh, which seemed to simultaneously reflect a wisdom from how many of life’s surprises she’d been witness too, as well as the wonder of the continued surprises. She loved the name Harman Miller Murphy that we had planned for our son, probably because the name had become recognizable in our hometown of Laguna. I felt a great connection to Judi, as I believe Alexandra did as well, and it would have been great to deliver with her there. But Alexandra’s birth plans remained theoretical, not actual. Alexandra didn’t dilate much, not nearly enough to even think about pushing, and so 5 pm arrived and so did the first compromise: Pitocin. They started her on a low dosage, and cranked it up as the hours wore on.

Later in the night, now with nurse Melissa (and the first midwife was named Melissa) with little headway made on the dilation, they also inserted a Foley Balloon into her cervix. It wasn’t something even remotely dreamed of, but it definitely didn’t fit the vision of Alexandra’s desired birth. The Foley Balloon would swell, helping force dilation until reaching 5 centimeters. But even that dilation process didn’t rapidly arrive. She tried to rest as much as possible in this milder form of labor, until it reached about 3:45 am, when they finally took the Foley Balloon out.

At this point, Alexandra started active labor. The contractions became more fierce, and she would clench up so tight that she would begin to cavitate. She moaned from the pain, and with little sign or hope of progress, she agreed to take an epidural in the early morning darkness. The midwife told her that the epidural would help her relax, and so she might actually deliver Baby Harman faster. She said that dilation would take about 2 hours to go from 5 centimeters to 6, and each following centimeter would take about an hour. On that timeline, she was expected to go into labor around noon. Alexandra fell asleep, exhausted and relieved.

We switched to another nurse, Jenner and her student nurse Richelle. Jenner had a daughter named Wren, similar to our longshot name for our son. The main midwife, Lisa Sherwood, showed up for her turn to watch over Alexandra. We felt like were in good hands.

In Alexandra’s restful state (which included a few minutes where she played video games while sitting on a balance ball), I had time to text her family and friends the details. I shared that Al was doing well, even if she was going slow, and that we’d expect the pushing to start around noon. The Longoria twins, Tina and Teresa texted me the most, separately. As the doctor, Teresa kept asking where Alexandra was in the process, leaning on specific details: Pitocin levels, dilation, and positioning of our son. Teresa planned to help deliver the baby, and she needed to judge when she should leave her shift at the hospital. Tina was also curious about the details, in addition to the more experiential and emotional aspects. Al’s brothers were more pure enthusiasm and anticipation for the arrival of their nephew, and they had made plans to bring Grammi that evening. I shared with my parents too, and Alexandra very generously allowed my mom Ellie to partake in the delivery room processes. I don’t imagine many women allowing their mother-in-laws to be present for the birth, it’s such a intimate and vulnerable moment. I did my best to keep the folks in the loop for as long as possible, but the estimations for delivery time kept inching backwards due to slow progress--even as we dialed up Pitocin levels. Soon it was 2 pm, then 4, then 6 pm. I became nervous that something was wrong, because at every point, things continued to defy expectations of the doctors and not just our plans. What made me feel better was how clear Alexandra made decisions in the process, each time opting to go away from her vision and towards what was best for the baby.

During this time delay, Alexandra’s labor shakes increased in regularity, to the point where in the afternoon--probably that 2 pm guess when labor would start--I jumped into bed to help calm her cavitations. With not much going on then, my mom even drew a picture of us spooning on the hospital bed. But when we woke, Alexandra suddenly had a fever. For a woman this far into labor, fevers can be dangerous for the baby, and so the staff quickly rushed to get her antibiotics to help normalize her temperature. Even in this time though, Baby Harman’s heart rate remained strong, a sign that we weren’t going to have to make any rash decisions.

Alexandra still had some time before reaching total dilation, but we finally had Alexandra’s crew in the room: Doña, me, Teresa, and my mom. Teresa made it to the hospital in her doctor scrubs, ready for action. Alexandra dilated to 10 centimeters around 6 pm, and she was given the go to start pushing at 6:30.

Right before she started, there was a lull. Teresa took the liberty to give Alexandra a pep-talk about how she should breath while pushing the baby. Just then, the midwife Lisa Sherwood came in, and Teresa said, “I don’t care what the doctors or midwife tells you, you have to breath like you’re going under a big wave.” The midwife clenched at this, probably used to years of doctors doing this. Teresa didn’t turn around, I didn’t say anything, and it felt like a tension developed in the room without Teresa’s noticing it. When Teresa turned around, she tried to downplay the incident. While awkward in the moment, I can’t help but laugh about it now. We joke about Teresa as “a Champion” and it revolves around an indomitable will and passion, which can focus her attention to the point where she would say something like that which would rub someone else the wrong way. But that’s part of her charm. Besides, she and the midwife actually did agree on the breathing.

Alexandra, true to her athletic past, gave all her effort. I watched her vagina--which felt strange in person as it was to write--and I looked for signs that our son would come out, but at every push, he never showed his head. Devoid of all energy except will, Alexandra kept pushing for 90 minutes, shaking in between. I marveled at her, and breathed alongside every push, and cheered her as best as possible for a person who has never participated in a birth, that sweet ignorance and blind trust that I need to listen to those in charge.

The doctor on call that night paid a visit. Dr. Mendelsson spoke with a New York accent, carried herself with a confidence, but didn’t rush things. She reviewed the charts and said, “If you want to keep pushing, take another hour and show me what you got.”

Alexandra returned to pushing, but I caught her signing with her right hand the “C” of c-section to Teresa, and that second session of 60 minutes felt like it dragged on way longer. The anxiety mounted about what was happening to Alexandra. She pushed so hard that she must have been so exhausted. At the end she said, “This feels futile.” We kept telling her to push, the hour wasn’t up after all, but I certainly felt like I hadn’t held up my side of the bargain, that one more thing that Al wanted to happen wasn’t happening in her birth, and that I worried what was actually happening.

Dr. Mendelsson returned to the room, and immediately looked for progress. None. And her  assessment (at the zero position) was actually worse than the midwife’s assessment at the beginning (at the plus one position). The midwife said that Alexandra pushed well, but she may have been overly enthusiastic in her hopes of helping deliver the child vaginally.

“What are your thoughts about a plan b?” Dr. Mendelsson asked.

“I was ready for that an hour ago,” Alexandra said.

The nurse started to set up the bed to be able to move Alexandra. Teresa went immediately to talk to Dr. Mendelsson and came back to tell us that Teresa would be scrubbing in, and that I would be the only one in the room able to watch. Teresa gave me scrubs to put on, baby blue and even went over my feet.

I walked out of the delivery room, and I realized how many people were there, my dad, my mom, Bob, Doña, and who had been there; Bo, Ryan, Grammi. Everyone looked excited and worried, and I felt bad that Doña couldn’t come too. She had put in so much effort with this pregnancy, and with her own cancer treatments. She and Alexandra have always been so close, but I was in such a rush to follow Alexandra, while the emergency nurse rolled her down the hallway, that I didn’t talk with her, nor did I talk much with any of them. The one thing that I do remember is that my dad said that this felt really familiar.

Almost 35 years prior, he had seen my mom go into labor with me. I barely budged then, and her doctor, Dr. Eleanor Krim, said that my mom would have to deliver me via c-section. I came out healthy, my mom unscathed, and he drove us home the next day right into a hurricane.

But as we prepared for the C-section of my son, the emergency nurse made me wait outside the operating room while they prepared Alexandra for surgery. I texted with friends and family what was happening. Tina kept checking in. So did my brother and Kalesa, his girlfriend. The family wanted updates. I gave them what I had.

After a few minutes, the emergency nurse came back in and invited me in. I had to give a wide berth to the surgical team as I found my way to the back where I saw Alexandra’s head behind a 3 foot by 3 foot blue curtain, separating her from her body. I remember thinking it looked like a magic trick, where the magician sawed the beautiful assistant in half, and that I would get to see behind the scenes.

Dr. Mendelsson had already made the initial incision on Alexandra’s stomach, which had been prepped by putting an adhesive film over her stomach which made it look like the skin of a turkey. Both Dr. Mendelsson and Teresa (in the room, she was Dr. Longoria) made fast, precise, and rough movements. Alexandra asked me to film the process on her iPhone so she could see what it looked like and I captured the process as much as possible.

“This is so cool,” I said. Not my best reaction, but I was truly amazed at watching the surgery.

“This is cool, he says.” Dr. Mendelson continues cutting.

“Well, you’re saving the life of my wife and son, I’d say that’s pretty cool.”

“Your son is fine,” Dr. Mendelsson said, and she went back to talking with Teresa while performing the surgery.

Dr. Mendelsson then paused and turned to get an O-ring--a medical device that our friend Krista Krach sells which is two 8 inch malleable rubber circles, connected by transparent plastic. Dr. Mendelsson twists the plastic and then bends one end of the O-ring to fit inside Alexandra’s uterus, and when she releases, it mimics a vagina. Dr. Mendelsson grabs for our son’s head, gripping his head with her strong hands, and she pulls him out. Why Alexandra had to have a C-section was immediately clear. Our son was huge, how did he ever fit inside Alexandra? Where did he hide all that time?

“I don’t know who told you this was a seven pound baby, but they’re wrong,” Dr. Mendelsson said.

After a few minutes, they snipped his umbilical cord and the emergency nurse took him to the warming table to clean him off. He invited me over, and I was able to hold my son’s hand, his grip firm despite being so small. His head totally coned like the Great Kazoo in the Flinstones.

“I’m old enough to know that reference, but how about you?” Dr. Mendelson asked.

“Saturday morning cartoons,” I said.

The emergency nurse lifted up my son and carried him over to see Alexandra, while they stitched her up. She couldn’t hold her son because her hands were shaking so badly from being depleted, so the emergency nurse held him next to her for the full 20 minutes it took to stitch her back up and cauterize the wound at multiple levels so that it would heal well, but it left the air smelling of burnt flesh. Though not from my son, he had made it past the fire.

We wheeled the two of them back to the room, and everyone celebrated. I hugged my father, which felt especially poignant to me. While I have always loved my father, respected his work, appreciated what he has done for me, intimacy has rarely been a part of the relationship. There were big moments, like my 18th birthday when we had dinner at one of my golf tournaments and he read me a list of things about what it meant to be a man. Another when I was 13 and received a ‘C’ in a science class he knew that I could do better in (at 13, I deeply disliked the teacher). And this was another in line with these moments, except the closeness didn’t feel like an isolated incident, but the changing of a relationship.

The moment, like many emotional moments tinged with exhaustion, felt like a blur. The family left. Alexandra and I were the only ones in the room, and I had a beer while she held our son to her chest. It was incredibly beautiful to watch her.

That night I had a dream. Like many of my dreams, it was violent. I was living on an island estate on Catalina, when I could see planes flying overhead dropping bombs. I felt deep in my bones that the planes were coming after me, specifically targeting me for eradication, and everyone around me on land. I ran through a field and to a pier that extended into a calm bay, where I hid underneath watching the planes fly overhead, continuing to drop bombs. I felt the tug of the water, and I slowly waded into the ocean, only to see a seal with my son’s face waiting for me expectantly and protectively.

“He’s not Harman,” Alexandra said to me the next morning, waking me up. “I just can’t call him that name.”

We went over the backup names. She liked Oliver, I liked Oscar. Kelly Ryan was a last second idea. But the familial name that honored my brother, her brother, and her dad all in one: Reyn Robert Murphy stood out.

Her mom and my mom came back to the hospital the day following birth, and we tried to get Alexandra to sleep. She had been up so much for the last three days, and needed rest. I felt so thankful to have them there, and for all their help.

During the time in the hospital, I don’t think we stopped to talk about all that had happened over the last year to lead up to this point, where Al and Reyn and I were a new family, where Doña was healthy, where my mom and dad looked relaxed and joyous in ways that I had never seen in my life, where we have a new person in the world. We mentioned snippets, about Alexandra’s feet being so swollen at times, or my crazy trip to Catalina, but I think we missed what this experience means to everyone how it redefines our lives.

This new being, our little Reynnie, has made a mother out of Alexandra, a father out of me, just as the birth of life has done for other parents for years and decades and centuries and millennia back to that magical spark of life that created the first microbes that evolved to become us. We get to relive that miracle of spark to human in every pregnancy. Our son will eat and scream and grow and love. I deeply realize how separate we are, but also how important that is to be individuals, different, as part of the collective. Being individuals allows us the freedom to redefine ourselves, which we do all the time. And with it comes a wisdom--one which can be learned in having a child-- that the most meaningful things in life are not ourselves, but what we can give to others, in a way that is distinctly our own, in the time we’re allotted.