Chris, 35, of Guardians of the Galaxy and Parks and Recreation fame, has spoken at a charity benefit on the difficult time following the birth of his son, Jack. Chris and actress wife Anna Faris, of Scary Movie and other comedies, had their first child in August 2012, and it was a complicated birth.
Chris spoke at the March of Dimes luncheon, an organisation that provides health research and care for mothers and babies.
Prepare yourselves. You may feel all the feels.
Especially with the mental image of Chris lying with his sick, tiny baby resting on his chest – “the best feeling I ever had.”
“Our little Jack didn’t want to be an October baby. He wanted to be born in the summer, I guess. Anna woke me up in the middle of the night and she told me that her water had just broken. It was two-and-a-half months early. Oh, baby. Ready or not.”
“Then he came. Just about nine weeks early. Anna got to hold him for a moment and then it was off to the NICU — the neonatal intensive care unit. Three pounds, 12 ounces. That’s a decent size bass. Very small for a human. He would need a lot.
He had jaundice, so they put a blindfold on him and he slept beneath a creepy light and he had a PICC line, which is an IV that runs up his arm into his heart. He had a feeding tube and just wires in and out, and he lived in that incubator. That was his first crib.”
“He was hooked up to these monitors and to us it meant that the machine started beeping because he stopped breathing over and over. One of the brave and amazing nurses would come over and shake him a little bit, I guess to remind him he was alive. The only people allowed to touch him were his Mom and me, unless you were wearing gloves.”
“We did this amazing thing they call ‘skin-to-skin’ — it was just the best feeling I ever had. It’s just what it sounds like. My little boy was laying across my neck and chest feeling my heartbeat and feeling my love, and I played him country music and I sang to him and I made him promises… in that moment… you know, about… just about what kind of dad I wanted to be, and I just prayed that he’d be here long enough and he was going to let me keep him.”
How very beautiful. And we aren’t just talking about Chris’s face.
Fortunately, little Jack pulled through, thanks to the help of “cutting-edge medicines, much of which is a direct result of this wonderful organisation, the March of Dimes”.
“Our Jack went from a small helpless little squirt to a strong, happy, funny, and vocal boy. He loves monster trucks and Daniel Tiger and, believe it or not, he loves vegetables. Broccoli and cherry tomatoes are his favourite foods.”
“I’ve done all kinds of cool stuff as an actor. I’ve gotten to jump out of helicopters and do daring stunts and play baseball in a professional stadium, but none of them mean anything compared to being somebody’s daddy.”
What a great dad. Here’s an extra pic of Chris and Jack just to round things out. Aww.
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