Missed Deadline

It’s Friday, July 18, 1997.

8 p.m. New York City

There I stood with an empty shopping cart, before a wall of diapers. A formidable wall. A wall that Odysseus - wooden horse or not - wouldn’t be able to breach. It was imposingly tall and long, stretching the length of a basketball court.

I was a brand new father, and looking every bit the part. I was out of breath, panic- stricken, already exasperated and completely overwhelmed by the sensory overload of the flagship Babies R Us, in the heart of Times Square.

How did I wind up here?

Let’s hit pause, and rewind.

19 HOURS AGO

It’s 1 a.m. in Charleston, South Carolina

I was in the deep sleep of a producer who’d gone out with his NBC crew to celebrate wrapping up a two day shoot with the Charleston River Dogs, a Minor League Baseball team partially owned by Bill Murray. Jokes were told, shots were downed, and beers were had. Many beers.

The hotel phone on the nightstand shattered the silence of my hotel room.

I groggily checked the digital clock.

Somebody once said nothing good ever happens after midnight. That goes for phone calls as well. I knew I had to take this, so I fumbled for the phone in the dark, grabbed it and answered, groggily.

Hello…

Loo…?

It was my wife, Yvonne. We had a habit of calling each other Lee or Loo. One of those cutesy couples things that either gives friends all the feels, or makes them want to puke. It was our Shmoopie.

But this was not one of those cutesy moments. Her voice was trembling.

Lee, what’s wrong?

My water broke.

Uh oh.

My reaction was not exactly straight out of the husband’s handbook.

In perhaps the most mansplainy example of mansplaining in the history of mansplainkind, I attempted to rationalize it all away.

Okay, honey, don’t panic, just tell me - how much water?

Yup, I said it. Like I expected the love of my life, the woman who was about to give birth to our child - alone and 800 miles north of me - to get out a measuring cup and give me an accurate total to the nearest ounce.

I could blame the beer I suppose. Or the fact that I’d just been yanked from a deep sleep and was not yet fully functioning. Or I could just face the facts - I was an idiot.

Yvonne’s response was one hundred percent Yvonne. And absolutely justified.

How much water? Enough to drown you in your sleep. I’m having this baby. So get your ass up here and join me, would ya?

Hell hath no fury like a woman about to give birth alone, especially when her husband is hungover in Chucktown.

I told her I loved her, that I’d call my sisters to meet her at the hospital, and assured her that I’d be at her side as soon as humanly possible.

We hung up and I went into full producer mode. At that moment, I had a problem to solve. There’d be plenty of time for panic later.

I called Delta and explained my predicament. They had a flight leaving for New York in 45 minutes, with a layover in Atlanta. I booked it, even though there was a pretty good chance I wouldn’t make the flight. The airport was a good 20 minutes away and I had to pack and get a ride. It would be tight. But I had to take a shot. Otherwise I stood zero chance of being at Yvonne’s side when our baby was born.

I rousted my cameraman, Tim Ortman, from a similar sleep to the one I was enjoying, and he offered to drive me to Charleston International Airport. We planned to meet downstairs in 5. While he pulled his rental around front, I threw my stuff in a carry-on and left the room like the character A Train on The Boys.

Tim was waiting for me downstairs. I tossed my bag in the back seat, jumped in, and off we went. Pro Tip: If you’re ever in dire straits, you want to have a network cameraman on speed dial. They are a special breed. They’ve seen it all, and are champion crisis managers. So I felt that with Tim at the wheel, and not some South Carolinian driver whose cab moved as slowly as his drawl, I might just make it.

If there were any cops on the road that night, we wouldn’t have. We’d have been pulled over. But fate was smiling on me, and I made the flight - with mere seconds to spare. Tim with the save!

I squeezed through the door at the gate as it was closing, then collapsed in my seat. Next to a woman with a little baby boy. Sure, God, rub it in my face - like I didn’t already feel like the biggest piece of shit on earth.

In my defense, the fact that Yvonne was alone and I was away was not entirely my fault.

Our son’s projected due date was September 5th. Not mid-July. He apparently had some sort of in utero FOMO and decided to come 5 1/2 weeks early. Eager little bugger.

And I had the green light to travel for my Today Show shoot from the two key players, Yvonne and her OBGYN.

But whether it was my fault or not didn’t really matter at that moment, as I sat there on that Delta flight watching the new mom next to me coo with her baby. I was wracked with guilt, and worry, because I had no idea what was happening back at home.

MEANWHILE, BACK ON W. 72nd STREET

Yvonne went downstairs and asked our doorman to hail a cab.

Luis was a father six or seven times over. He took one look at her, and called an ambulance.

You’re not having that kid in a cab.

The ambulance came. Yvonne was rushed to New York Hospital, which was on the other side of town.

ARE YOU SHITTING ME?

Meanwhile, back in the air…

The new mom pulled down the tray table and - I kid you not - changed the baby’s diaper. Right there, on the table, mere inches from me. A full diaper. She wiped her newborn’s crack, applied some butt cream, slapped a fresh nappy one him (I’m watching a lot of BritBox these days) and then tucked the aromatic full one in the seat pocket in front of her.

I made a mental note to not ask to borrow her in-flight magazine.

It was maybe the most vile and rude thing I’d ever witnessed. I was too flabbergasted to react.

Also, by watching her in stunned incredulous silence, I actually learned how to change a diaper.

So let’s call it a wash.

BACK IN NYC

Yvonne was gurneyed into a delivery room where she was going to have an emergency C-section because our baby was breach. A panicky technician paged our OBGYN, Machelle Allen.

THE LAYOVER

In the air….

Mercifully, my plane finally landed at Hartsfield Airport in Atlanta, where I had to endure an excruciating thirty-minute layover. Long enough to call the hospital and get patched through to the delivery room.

A nurse answered.

I explained who I was and asked if I could speak to Yvonne. She told me that wasn’t possible.

Well, how’s she doing?

What I wanted to hear was something along the lines of She’s doing fine, she’s in good hands. Don’t worry, just get here when you can.

I got something entirely different.

The nurse - who’d clearly graduated from Nurse Ratched U - held the phone up so I could hear Yvonne moaning and screaming in pain. It was horrible.

Then Ratched jumped back on.

How does it sound like she’s doing?

She belonged in the medical ward at Riker’s, not in a delivery room.

Please tell her I love her and that I’ll be there in a couple of hours.

Yvonne never got the message. Shocker.

WHEELS DOWN

I landed at LaGuardia. Jumped in a cab. Promised the driver an extra twenty if he could get me to the hospital in thirty minutes, and hoped he drove like a network cameraman.

He did.

I walked into Yvonne’s hospital room at 9:10 a.m.

Unfortunately, Kristoffer Hayes Johansen was born at 7:10 a.m.

I missed it by two hours. A fact that neither Yvonne nor Kris has ever let me forget.

As mad as she might have been at me during my Odyssey to get there, all was forgiven when I walked in the hospital room and the three of us were together for the first time. It was nothing but love. And tears.

And Kris was the most beautiful little creature I’d ever seen. Pink and wrinkly with a full head of hair. And a good, healthy size despite his super early arrival. My boy!

KEEP THE TIP

At one point, they came in to get Kris for his circumcision. Saying that I owed her one, Yvonne asked me to go watch the procedure, so that Kris wouldn’t feel alone. I didn’t understand the logic, but I agreed that I did in fact owe her one, so I obliged.

In the corridor, the doctor pulled me aside and told me I really didn’t want to watch the procedure. He told me he’d back me up if I wanted to tell Yvonne I was witness to the pip of a snip, even if I wanted to sit it out. Apparently, he also took the Hypocritic Oath.

I made my wife a promise, so I positioned myself on the other side of the glass.

And watched as they pinned down Kris, like a frog in high school anatomy lab. He screamed his little preemie lungs out before and after the snip. It was painful to watch. My penance, which I deserved.

IT TAKES A VILLAGE

On the bright side, we now had a beautiful, healthy son.

On the flip side, he arrived almost 6 weeks early and we were totally unprepared. And I mean totally.

Except for a crib. We did have a crib.

But nothing else. No diapers. No formula. No clothes. No wipes. No onesies. No anything.

We had read What to Expect When You’re Expecting, but never made it to Lamaze classes. In terms of having everything ready at home for a new baby, we were in deep, deep meconium.

I spent the rest of the first day of Kris’s life in Yvonne’s hospital room, holding, nuzzling and kissing my son. When it was Yvonne’s turn to cradle him, I stared at this perfect little human with immeasurable awe. The rest of the day was filled with 10,000 or so apologies for not being there. Yvonne forgave me after circumcision-gate, especially when she found out that I decided not to ask to keep the foreskin.

Eventually, visiting hours were over, and I got the boot from a nurse.

I kissed the mother of my child, and then my actual child, and headed for uncharted waters.

BACK TO WHERE WE STARTED

8 p.m. Still July 18, 1997

Babies R Us. NYC

So here I am in the diaper aisle, exhausted and clueless. I had to stock up, and I had to do it quickly. Kris would be coming home tomorrow.

So I did what any knucklehead new dad would do: I threw myself on the mercy of everyone in the store.

Specifically, I asked every woman in my panicky path to tell me what I needed to buy.

And I hit the mother lode.

It started with Janis, a mom of three who helped me with diapers. Another lovely woman named Karen took the baton from Jan, and after telling me that my story reminded her of her own daughter’s early arrival, helped me navigate wipes and bottles. Then a third mom named Olivia helped me navigate rattles and onesies. Before long, word had spread through the store. It’s Defcon One near stuffed animals. First time dad in trouble. Drop everything and converge!

Over the next few minutes, it seemed like anyone with a uterus materialized before me, offering empathy, sympathy, compassion, and assistance.

This loving, helpful coven of moms tossed item after item into my cart. Diapers. Formula. Onesies. Wipes. A pacifier. Bumper cushions for the crib. Milk warmers. Diaper rash cream. You name it. Things I didn’t know existed and things I didn’t know I needed. When my cart was full, Jenny from Soho materialized with a second cart which she’d put a baby mat and a colorful light box in.

Mercifully, the core group of 5 moms - my squad - who’d been with me the whole time told me I was good to go. I had, in their estimation, everything I needed. For now.

So, I headed for checkout, with my mom-tourage in tow.

They were lifesavers.

It really does take a village.

And I was the village idiot.

I mean did I really need the baby cologne, Gloria?