David Ross watched, helpless and hopeful.
The Cubs' retiring 39-year-old catcher was about to become a father for the third time on Aug. 26, 2015.
But he wasn't sure whether his wife, Hyla, was going to survive. He wasn't sure his newborn daughter, Harper Lynn Ross, would either.
Hyla remembers seeing her husband, her high school sweetheart, through the door of the intensive care unit of a hospital in Tallahassee, Fla. She had been rushed there for an emergency cesarean section two months ahead of her scheduled due date after she suffered a partial abruption (when the placenta separates from the uterus).
"I see him putting on his scrubs and his shoes," said Hyla, a licensed pediatric nurse who has worked in her share of ICUs. "David came in, he was already crying before it started."
Because of the abruption, Hyla could have bled to death, which could have deprived Harper of oxygen and necessary nutrients.
"You're in there and they're cutting on your wife," Ross said. "She's scared; I'm scared.
"When things have gone pretty good for you in your life, you really don't think about all the negative things that are possible _ a child getting a disease or a newborn dying."
The C-section was a success. Harper was 3 pounds, 11 ounces and 17 inches long, screaming right away.
"She's so little," Ross said. "Her butt went all the way to her hamstrings. You're happy, but you're worried."
For a month she was in the neonatal intensive care unit, initially hooked to tubes to help her breath. Now she's almost 14 months and healthy, "wailing around and driving us crazy," Ross said. "She's a hoot."
