Hope for other dads

The day that he was born, I held Hayden in my arms in the hospital room while the Cardinals and Cubs played on TV. I’ve never been more excited to watch a baseball game. Yet, I have no idea which team won that day.

The morning after Lyla was born, I left the hospital for a few hours to drive 20 minutes to Simpson College in Indianola, Iowa. As I stood in a room on campus, a voice playfully called out from behind me, “What are you doing here?”

(Hayden and Lyla)

The voice was Hillary Clinton’s. We had an interview scheduled with Clinton long before we knew when Lyla would arrive. My wife, Emily, insisted, that I shouldn’t back out. Clinton was running an historic campaign.

Clinton asked me to show her pictures of our newborn girl. I showed her several. She told me stories about the birth of her daughter, Chelsea. We talked about the euphoria that we felt holding our infant. I remember almost nothing about the actual interview.

I love my career. I love baseball. But I love nothing more than fatherhood.

Maybe that’s why what happened in Washington, D.C. this week got me the way that it did.

We weren’t sure that we would become parents nearly 14 years ago. It took a while to get pregnant. And then Emily’s pregnancy became challenging. At 30 weeks along, contractions began. A nurse took us through the NICU, so we could see how the hospital handles preemies born that early.

It was frightening. A baby born that early, especially 14 years ago, faces long odds.

But thanks to a drug called Procardia that calmed her contractions and two months of bed rest, those odds changed dramatically. Our son was born healthy the first day of the 40th week of pregnancy, with not a single minute spent in the NICU.

If it hadn’t been for a stillbirth prevention program called Count the Kicks that alerted Emily that something was off in her pregnancy, Hayden likely would have had a very different outcome. It changed the course of our family, and Emily’s career, forever.

The non-profit that Emily has led for the past seven years, Healthy Birth Day, Inc., founded by five Des Moines moms, helped to guide legislation through Congress so more families would have a healthy birth like ours. It’s called The Maternal and Child Health Stillbirth Prevention Act. You can read it here.

The U.S. House passed. it. The Senate then did, too.

There were tears.

Here is how Emily described it in her email to advocates across the country.

The Maternal and Child Health Stillbirth Prevention Act is a powerful call to action to prioritize existing Title V Block Grant funds to prevent stillbirth. Stillbirth and stillbirth prevention to have been left out of Title V since the introduction of the funding back in 1935.

Our organization is proud to be the primary stakeholder and author of the Maternal and Child Health Stillbirth Prevention Act, but this monumental achievement would not be possible without the support of thousands of people like you.

The dedication, bravery and persistence from advocates across the country over the past two years has played a pivotal role in elevating the stillbirth crisis in the U.S. and in getting Congress to take action. Advocates and endorsing organizations have fueled the momentum to get us to where we are today.

THANK YOU to each and every person who has advocated for stillbirth prevention legislation in the 118th Congress or talked to someone about this bill. Because of your voices, the stillbirth crisis is finally getting the attention it deserves. We can't wait to show you the impact of your efforts.  

Gratefully,

Emily Price
CEO
Healthy Birth Day, Inc.

This legislation takes away any doubt for state health leaders: Their departments can and should use federal funding for stillbirth research and prevention. Advocates across the country are signing an online petition to encourage President Joe Biden to sign it.

This doesn’t feel like legislation. This is hope. This is a chance for others to feel what I do on this Father’s Day weekend: Unending love, gratitude and appreciation for the opportunity to be a parent.

That is my Father’s Day present. Every day.

Damn, I’m blessed!

GOING ON TOUR: Iowa State Auditor Rob Sand, the only Democrat in statewide office, has begun a 100-town tour. Is this his soft launch for a 2026 run for governor?

On Iowa PBS’ “Iowa Press” this week Sand told me that this is about serving others and he described how Jesus Christ set an example about service. Watch that here.

SHUTTING IT DOWN: These are the final days for the Glenwood Resource Center in southwest Iowa. The facility has existed (by other names and missions) since the 1800s. The state-run center’s most recent purpose was to care for several hundred intellectually disabled residents. It failed and betrayed some of them. Some of the staff, too.

Iowa Department of Public Health and Human Services Director Kelly Garcia told me what it was like to be on the job for three weeks in 2019 when she learned about the federal investigation into how top staff performed experiments on some of the disabled residents, the process to eventually close the facility, and what it’s been like to find new homes for the residents.

It was our featured interview on my show, “Inside Iowa Politics.” Watch it here.

MANAGING THE CRISIS: Greg Tyler is getting a lot of calls these days from people asking for advice…even though he admits that he doesn’t have all the answers. Tyler is the president and CEO of the USA Poultry and Egg Export Council. His two years as the top person in the organization have been marred by bird flu that’s lead to the deaths of tens of millions of poultry and frantic calls from colleagues in the dairy industry as the virus has infected cattle in at least a dozen states.

He told me in the podcast for American Farmland Owner how he is able to stay optimistic and why the concept of vaccinations to stop the spread of bird flu is much more complicated than it may sound. Watch that here.

Thanks for reading. Thanks for being part of this conversation. And thanks for your support!

I write this column as part of the Iowa Writers Collaborative. Our diverse group of independent writers now numbers nearly 50. One of our newest contributors is Taylor Deckert, the morning anchor at KTIV (NBC) in Sioux City, Iowa. (KTIV is also one of the stations in the 10-station group for Gray Television where I serve as political director an analyst).

“Taylor’s Milennial Mindset” has now officially launched.

Check out the full list of columnists here.