If you are reading this and you’re thinking that the Student Union Sports website is hacked, it isn’t. It’s just BigHoppa about to get on his soap box about my daughter. Today is her first birthday and you can go wish her a happy birthday on her Instagram, if you like!

Get Ready for Emotions

Anyways, for some real meat and potatahs. A year ago today at 4:41 PM, my daughter Lyla Rose Hopwood was born. The most emotional and terrifying day of my life started bright and early on a Sunday at 5:45 AM… An NFL Sunday. I made my, now fiance, a breakfast of pancakes that she hardly ate. She was nervous… I mean who wouldn’t be.

After breakfast, it was time to get the show on the road. We had to be at the hospital at 7:30 for the induction. If you’re unfamiliar, “induction” means force starting labor. Once we got to the hospital and got our room, Grace, my fiance, had to be monitored for about 2 hours. This is due to early labor she had been experiencing for a month and a half. After a long 2 hours, they decided to start labor at 9:30 AM.

Time Stamps

For convenience, labor can take a long time so we packed clothes for a 3-4 day stay, depending on labor. The Packers played the Sunday Night Football game in San Francisco at 7:20 PM so I needed labor to go quickly enough to watch the Packers play. Yes, I know, not that supportive, but it was a big game.

Alright, anyways 9:30 hits and it’s go time. Things progress slowly but Grace is feeling it. Lots of pain, obviously, and discomfort. We try to run her a warm bath, nothing. Tried rubbing her back, no cigar.

Grace didn’t want to have an epidural. “Epidural” is where a needle goes into your back and numbs you from your waist down. However, the pain was too much and because I’m soft and squeamish. I stepped out of the room while they were doing it. At 12:30 PM I grabbed some lunch because it had been 6 hours since I last ate and I mean c’mon, have you seen me?

I bring some light snacks back and things are starting to progress a little quicker. Essentially, at about 1:30-2:00 its like we are getting ready for the 4th quarter with Jump Around. Lots of irony in that statement since our hospital is a quarter mile or so from Camp Randall.

They say football is a game of inches, but when it comes to babies, it’s centimeters. At 2:30 PM Grace’s water breaks, like the 2012 Big Ten Championship game when Wisconsin beat Nebraska 70-31, the floodgates opened. When a nurse was helping get her prepared for the final drive, if you will, she noticed that there was Meconium from the water breaking. This means the baby pooped in the belly and it can be very bad because if it is circulated into the lungs it can be fatal.

So with all of this on the table and kickoff a mere 4 hours away, I was freaking out. Grace due to the pain, discomfort, and helpful medicine was essentially in and out of it.

Time to get Sappy

By 4 PM our main doctor got to our room and started prepping the catchers mitt because it was time for the fastball, so that you don’t have to have the gross details. He also had called in 3 NICU nurses in because they were going to have to suction out as much or all of the Meconium as possible to make sure baby would be good.

After 40 minutes, Lyla Rose was born. The doctors quickly handed her to Grace to hold. This didn’t last long.

Babies can sometimes come out not crying right away which is fairly normal, contrary to any movie ever. With the meconium situation it made sense, but she she also came out almost as purple as the Minnesota Viking color rush jerseys.

That’s when the nurses rushed into action. They swooped the baby from Grace and took her over to a mobile station. The first thing they do is start a timer.

This is where everything changed in an instant. Suddenly, the seemingly easy birth felt like my entire world crashing. The baby, unable to breathe, was being worked on by nurses and Grace had complications of her own.

Still being in and out, Grace kept crying for the baby and asking for how she was doing. Myself, constantly choking back tears, said the baby was doing good as I nervously watched over the nurses shoulders as they suctioned out liquid from my baby’s lungs.

You know how as a kid you always play in your driveway or on a mini hoop and do the countdown “3,2,1… ERRRRR” as you heave the ball up to win the championship? The most unrealistic part of that scenario is that you keep getting to try again. However, when this baby you’ve been waiting for is now suddenly not breathing and there’s a timer ticking every second that she isn’t, everything truly slows down. You don’t know when the nurses might call it because that’s a very real possibility. 1 second turns to 5 to 30 to a minute to 2 minutes to 3 minutes and 43 seconds.

That’s when suddenly the baby, my baby, our baby, coughs. Another one of those eternal seconds later, she turns from purple to pink and starts crying. Elation, happiness, every emotion floods form my already welled with tears eyes and the nurses quickly move to continue to suction out anything remaining.

Super Bowl Type Celebration

With tears streaming down my face I find my way to the waiting room. My family stares at me uncontrollably sobbing and hugging me. In hindsight, I was told that because I was so emotional nobody was able to make out a word I said so they thought the worst was happening. Which, while hugging everyone, I realized still might be happening because the love of my life, besides baby, is still being worked on.

I sprinted back around the corner into the room where the doctor had gotten this amazing person, Grace, as comfortable as she can get and stabilized. A little too much bleeding and other gross bits that I’ll spare you from reading about were taken care of. I hugged Grace and started the task of messaging everyone we know that we had crossed the finish line, caught the hail mary, or knocked down the half court shot, whichever you prefer.

That’s when the baby, wrapped in a blanket and with the cutest tiniest little winter hat on, was handed to Grace to hold. A very emotional moment again. That’s when a barrage of answers made me look at my phone and realized, it’s 5 PM. I get to watch the Packers.

In Conclusion

After a shower and getting our things taken to the next room where we would spend the next couple nights, I didn’t even really watch the game. It helps that the Packers were down 23-0 at halftime, but that little girl was way more important.

There’s a lot going on obviously, and has been for way too long now, but on Lyla’s 1st birthday I reflect back and realize how important our first responders, doctors and nurses are. So if you are one and reading this, thank you. Please tell someone you may know thank you and lastly a special shoutout to Dr. Hilquist, despite him getting his education at Northwestern, and the NICU team at Meriter Hospital, without them BigHoppa wouldn’t also be DaddyHoppa.