AJ Pollock experienced what he called “a wild ride” before meeting with his Los Angeles Dodgers teammates earlier this week, a ride that included the premature birth of his daughter and a brief fight with COVID-19.
Pollock’s daughter Maddi was born three months premature on March 19 and weighed 1.6 pounds at birth. She tested positive for the coronavirus approximately three months later and was forced to quarantine for 14 days. His wife, Kate, stayed away from Maddi for 10 days despite not contracting the virus.
“It is really weird,” Pollock said during a video conference from Dodger Stadium on Friday of his daughter’s premature birth. “It is a really strange feeling. You are very happy to see your daughter, but she weighs 1 pound and your head is already gone, ‘What will the future be like? What is the next step?’ Obviously there is no relief that she was born because you know all the challenges ahead. Yes, it has been a wild journey. It has been very emotional. And it has been scary, it has been scary, frustrating. Just a lot of emotions. But it is in a very good place now. “
Kate remains in Arizona waiting for Maddi to be released from the neonatal intensive care unit. Doctors want to make sure she can eat on her own without the need for a feeding tube. Pollock said he believes she is close but is not sure when she will be released. At the very least, he hopes to see her again when the Dodgers travel to Phoenix to face the Arizona Diamondbacks in a couple of weeks as baseball begins its shortest season.
Pollock reported that Maddi now weighs over 8 pounds.
“She looks like a normal baby,” he said. “If I didn’t tell you I was 24 weeks old [at birth]When you saw her you wouldn’t think any of that. Really grateful. She is so cute. It was a lot of fun. Obviously you go to Google after having a baby at 24 weeks, it’s scary. It is terrifying all the things that come up. But we have been very lucky up to this point, and it would be amazing if she keeps going and we share her story with the people who are going through it, and they can see that there is some hope and there is a setting where it can be a really good setting in instead of all these negative kinds of things that can go wrong. “
Pollock, a 32-year-old outfielder on his way to the second of a four-year, $ 55 million contract, was extremely careful about the birth of his daughter, going to the hospital alone and training. He said he hardly slept a night due to headaches and body aches, but he thought it was because the air conditioning in his house broke down. Then he started to feel congested and the headaches got worse, and Pollock performed a test that revealed he had the coronavirus. He said he found it hard to believe until he suddenly lost his sense of smell.
It took Pollock less than a week to feel like him again. He called it “scary” but also “a blessing” because he said he now has antibodies against the virus to provide him with a defense mechanism. He is the second Dodgers player to have tested positive, along with closer Kenley Jansen. Pollock, like Jansen, did not necessarily struggle with the idea of playing baseball this year. The decision was made easy when Kate, a former lacrosse player at Notre Dame, asked, “Could they really watch the boys win the World Series from our couch?”
Pollock said he is happy to return, but always aware of the fact that Kate spends 10 hours in the hospital visiting a newborn daughter who is more than 300 miles away.
“They will be here soon,” Pollock said. “It’s a good escape for me, but it’s hard to think about what my wife is going through.”
.
