The Baseball Rollercoaster

Time and time again we’ve been through the ups and downs of the baseball life but the most recent up that lasted a total of 38 hours had to have been the toughest for us to endure as new parents.

Ophelia and I decided to road trip with Tyler for his next two road series after his recent home stand given we wouldn’t see him for over a week during them. So we packed up and drove 8 hours with Tyler to El Paso, Texas.

After 3 days, I packed up again drove 4 hours solo with O to Albuquerque, New Mexico because Tyler’s final game was at 7pm and they wouldn’t arrive in Albuquerque until 3am on the team bus. Since we would be in New Mexico for another four days, we invited our parents to come spend time with us as well.

My parents arrived in the afternoon the following day an hour after he had left for the field, and Tyler’s mom was scheduled to make it in a day later. While getting ready for the 7pm game, I got a text from Tyler at 6:00 saying “Going up to Chicago, I have a flight leaving in 2 hours.” Under most circumstances, couples would be thrilled to hear this. And while we still hoped for the best, we suspected it wouldn’t be for too long, but hey it’s baseball, anything can happen right?

We’ve never had such short notice so my heart automatically sank. Less than 2 hours to say goodbye and no idea when we would see him again. When Tyler got to the hotel you could tell he barely had time to process any of it while I sat there with our 3 month old on my lap.

Before this year it was so easy to say, let’s go! Not cheap by any means but all we had to worry about was each other. This year our lives are changed in the best way forever with Ophelia.

With my parents in their room on the floor above us and the unknown being so, unknown, I planned on heading home to Arizona with them, but after looking into my fiancé’s eyes I knew where I needed to be. Thankfully O is blessed with the most amazing grandparents who took her home while I decided to play out the next couple days with Tyler.

We knew they would be short but the anxiety of not knowing hits both of us like a rock. I have never been apart from O for more than a night at a time and only 20 minutes away, so on our way to Chicago, literally a thousand miles away, a breakdown was natural. Tyler and I both struggled leaving our new baby girl behind for the first time and missing our on time with our family but work is work and supporting him is my number one priority while I know she is being taken care of.

When we arrived in Chicago, the game he was called to pitch in was postponed due to weather and the following morning before even unpacking at the field he was sent back down to make room for a player on the DL coming back. The first thought that went through our head was that we left our daughter and family for this? The rush, anxiety, headache, and heartache to not even get the chance to put your uniform on, let alone play?

I have to say if it wasn’t for our faith in God we would have been furious, but I have to give it to Tyler for his grace throughout the entire ordeal. Despite missing O desperately, we took it as an opportunity to spend time together the way we did previous years. 

We got a mini honeymoon just the two of us. We went out for lunch, went to a candy store, got O a couple souvenirs, had an amazing date night dinner, ordered a hotel room movie and slept through the night! I like to think a chance to reconnect with my best friend was God’s plan all along. I wouldn’t trade those couple of days for the world even with how much we struggled with leaving and being without our baby. But hey, this is just our Baseball Rollercoaster life.