From Hope to Helplessness: Our 24-Week Warrior’s First Fight
Mateo's NICU journey Part 1
In physics, a phase transition describes a moment when things completely change—water turns to ice, a liquid boils into steam. It’s sudden, irreversible, and fundamentally alters the system.
Phase transitions aren’t just for physics; they happen in life too. Sudden, seemingly small shifts can push us across invisible thresholds, transforming everything we thought we knew, everything we care about, and everything we strive for in the future. Just like that, your entire world is different. I believe we all have moments like this in our lifetime. I had this experience one year ago.
Before everything changed
Our family’s phase transition was a cold December day in New York. My wife was pregnant with our first child, due in March. Up to this point, everything about the pregnancy had gone perfectly. Her doctors were happy with all the test results, and we let ourselves believe things would continue smoothly.
At first, the pregnancy was all I thought about, but as the weeks passed, it faded into the background of daily life. We had four months until he was due, and with our busy jobs as new professors, it felt natural to focus on work. It was the last week of classes, the busiest time of year. Grading deadlines, research projects, and end-of-year pushes consumed my thoughts. I told myself I just needed to finish this “final push” before shifting my focus back to my wife. I regret that deeply.
Looking back, I regret that deeply. It's amazing how clearly you can see things once you're on the other side of a phase transition.
My wife had been in a lot of pain for weeks, starting around 22 weeks. Her back pain escalated until it became unbearable by the time she reached 24 weeks. That Friday night, she was suffering. We’d called her doctor’s office days earlier, but they reassured us that her pain was likely normal and she could wait until her next appointment. Everyone I asked told me the same thing—back pain is common during pregnancy. I believed them.
What stuck out about this Friday wasn’t the pain; it was Crosby, our tuxedo cat. Two months earlier, we’d scheduled surgery for him to have all his teeth removed. As cat people, this felt like a big deal. Crosby was older, and the idea of him being knocked out made us nervous. That morning, as we drove him to the vet, my wife couldn’t even sit properly in the car. She winced at every bump, shifting uncomfortably in her seat for the entire five-minute drive. Even then, I thought, This is just part of pregnancy.
That day, something shifted. As Crosby cried in the backseat, I noticed my wife struggling more than ever. It finally broke through the haze of deadlines, classes, and surgery stress: we needed to do something. She decided to check her blood pressure.
I had picked up a monitor on my way home from work that day. It was supposed to be a precaution—just to rule anything out. When the numbers flashed on the screen, we both froze. Something was seriously wrong.
Doctors later told us that buying that blood pressure monitor saved her life. It pushed us to act.
I am one of those people that has a habit of asking AI a lot of questions. So, when my wife took her blood pressure, we knew it was terrible. But I wasn’t sure if it was accurate, and wanted to confirm the implications. Below is what chatGPT said. We headed to the hospital, hoping the numbers were wrong. They were not.
The Night Everything Changed
The night began with a sense of unease but quickly spiraled into one of the most terrifying experiences of my life. When we arrived at the lower-intensity ER, it still didn’t feel real. My wife’s blood pressure was dangerously high, but I clung to the hope that it could be managed. The plan, they said, was to stabilize her and transport her to a hospital equipped for high-risk pregnancies and NICU care. I naively thought this meant she might stay hospitalized for a while so the baby could continue to grow. I still didn’t grasp the full severity of what was happening.
But things shifted quickly. First, we were moved from the main floor of the ER to Labor and Delivery. The doctors and nurses looked concerned, but no one was panicking—yet. Then came the next conversation: “We may need to deliver in the next few days,” the doctor said. I nodded, trying to process the words. Deliver? I thought. That can’t be right. The baby still has over four months to go! But as the evening wore on, it became clear: we weren’t leaving the hospital. We had reached a tipping point.
The phrase “phase transition” comes to mind—those moments in life when small changes accumulate until, suddenly, everything shifts into a completely new state. What started as a precautionary ER visit had now become a life-or-death situation.
Within hours, the concern escalated. My wife’s symptoms worsened. The doctors explained she had HELLP syndrome, a life threatening condition. It causes liver damage, clotting problems, and a high risk of seizures or stroke. For my wife, it meant her organs were failing. They could not believe she was walking that day. With great stress in her eyes, the doctor sounded extremely stressed. “Delivery of the baby is the only treatment”, she told us. I’ll never forget how scared the head OBGYN looked. It scared me. She wasn’t expecting such an emergency situation that night.
I quickly googled what it meant to deliver at 24 weeks. I knew nothing about micro-preemies. I didn’t know that 24 weeks is often considered the edge of viability—the earliest point where a baby has a chance to survive outside the womb. Babies born this early can’t breathe on their own; they need ventilators and a treatment called surfactant to open the tiny air sacs in their lungs. Even with these interventions, survival is not guaranteed. And for those who survive, the road ahead is long and uncertain.
As if this weren’t enough, the situation took another dramatic turn. During an ultrasound to monitor the baby’s heart, the mood in the room shifted to further stressed. The doctors exchanged nervous glances and spoke in hushed tones. It felt like a scene from one of those medical dramas—Grey’s Anatomy, but it was real. It was my life. They told us the baby wouldn’t survive the transport. They couldn’t wait.
In the middle of all the chaos, one person stood out: a traveling medical tech who quietly became an anchor for me. Early on, she brought me food and shared stories about her work. “You don’t want to need me tonight,” she joked with a smirk, referring to her experience assisting in c-sections. Little did we know, she would become a critical part of this night. Later, when I felt frozen with fear, she gave me the first glimmer of hope: “He is going to be okay. I know it. They do this all the time.”
Teams from three different hospitals were called in—two with NICUs to prepare for Mateo’s care, and one for the high-risk delivery itself. The urgency was now unmistakable. The anesthesiologist pulled up a chair and calmly walked us through the risks of the emergency c-section. Limited anesthesia. High risk of complications. “There’s a chance,” she said, “that your wife might be awake for the entire procedure. There’s also a chance she might not wake up at all.”
I sat there, listening, feeling like I had stepped into someone else’s life. None of it felt real. My wife nodded along as the anesthesiologist spoke, but I could see she wasn’t fully present. From a combination of the magnesium and other drugs they gave her, to the trauma of the moment, she seemed completely disassociated from the moment. Looking back, I was glad she was not fully able to grasp the moment. I’ve never been more scared in my life. The nurse asked me if I was ok. I was frozen in terror. All I tried to do was focus on breathing. I was beginning to practice coping mechanisms that would be essential over the next 6 months of ups and downs.
When they wheeled her away, I was left alone to wait. Minutes felt like hours. Time stretched endlessly as I sat in the room alone, feeling like I was in a nightmare.
Finally, one of the surgeons returned to update me. It was the first smile I had seen in what felt like forever. He had this smile I was going to see a lot more of in the next week. It was not a smile of happiness, but of empathy. The surgery had been successful. Mateo had been born. He weighed just 740 grams—1.63 pounds. He was immediately placed on a ventilator and had to receive chest compressions to save his life. But he made it.
They brought me to the hall outside the surgery room. I’ve never seen so many doctors in one place. As they prepared Mateo for transport, the medical tech came over with a wide smile. “Congrats, father! You have to get pictures,” she said, taking my phone and snapping photos of Mateo being placed in the NICU transport vehicle. It was the first time I saw him—tiny, fragile, but alive. For the first time that night, I began to realize the miracle that Mateo was.
Photo caption: One of these “first pictures” of our son being prepared for transfer to the NICU.
Reflecting on the Phase Transition
The thing about these moments is that, despite the fog, certain people and gestures remain etched in your memory. I remember the Physician’s Assistant who, in the chaos of it all, took the time to sit with me and calmly explain how to find the NICU, his password, and when I could call—details that felt like a lifeline in the storm. I remember our friend, who, without hesitation, met us at 5 a.m. to take our house keys so she could feed the cats while we stayed at the hospital.
And I remember the medical tech—not just for the photos she took or the food she brought me, but because she made me feel seen in a moment when it felt like the world was caving in. She wasn’t just doing her job. She was a reminder that even in the darkest moments, kindness can pierce through.
These moments may have seemed ordinary to them, but to us, they were extraordinary. In the turbulence of that night, these people were like anchors, keeping us from being swept away by fear and uncertainty.
In physics, phase transitions happen when a system crosses a critical threshold and moves into a completely new state. The transformation is sudden, often chaotic, and feels irreversible. But even in the chaos of transition, there are stable points—constants that allow the system to adjust. For my family, those constants weren’t abstract ideas. They were people. Their small acts of kindness—whether it was food, a conversation, or practical help—became the steady points that helped us navigate this new and overwhelming reality.
Even in the most terrifying transitions, we’re not truly alone. There are always constants—people and moments—that remind us what it means to hope, to hold on, and to move forward.
As I sat alone the next morning, preparing to drive to the NICU hospital, I didn’t know what the next hours, days, or months would hold. I only knew that everything had changed. But in those moments, I began to understand something: even in the most terrifying transitions, we’re not truly alone. There are always constants—people and moments—that anchor us, reminding us of the strength to hope, the courage to hold on, and the resolve to move forward.
(This is part 1 of a series I’m writing about our experiences with having a micro-preemie. If this resonates with you, I’d love for you to subscribe and follow along. Your thoughts and stories are welcome—let’s share hope together.)
Part 2 coming soon! If you enjoyed — please share this post with others. Thank you!