Champion for Charity Jeff MacIntyre fights for the ‘care and compassion’ of McMaster Children’s Hospital
By Jeff Hicks
HAMILTON —
The ambulance pulled into McMaster Children’s Hospital.
Jeff MacIntyre, scared and disbelieving, followed close behind.
His daughter Emily seemed intent on making an early entrance into the world. How early? Too early. Her mother Kelly had gone into labour. Emily was only 25 weeks along.
While the neonatal unit staff cared for Emily’s mother, MacIntyre got the straight talk from the medical team. Funny, a man who would become known for his brutal honesty as a life coach and mentor for many got a decimating dose of the same.
“Jeff, this is what we expect today,” MacIntyre was told bluntly.
“You are going to have a baby. The baby is going to be around one pound.”
The chances of survival were worrisome. They told him the odds.
MacIntyre looked around as anxiety overwhelmed him. What he saw, in that moment of fear and helplessness 27 years ago, was comforting and reassuring.
“I’ll never forget it,” recalled MacIntyre, one of 20 community leaders who will step into the boxing ring for the first time on April 12th to raise money for McMaster Children’s Hospital Foundation as one of Mandy Bujold’s Champions for Charity.
“I would see these other young parents and one and two-pound babies. I watched the care the nurses provided. What I saw was the care and compassion.”
The labour stopped. Emily had been granted time to grow.
Kelly stayed at McMaster under observation, in case labour began again. The weeks crept by.
MacIntyre drove back and forth from Kitchener. Emily’s older sister Madeline came with him. For two months, McMaster became their second home. The staff, their second family.
“They were so accommodating, so lovely. They were just there for us.” said MacIntyre, the 58-year-old president of the Grand Valley Construction Association. “It became our safe place.” 
But the boxing ring is no safe place for MacIntyre to lower his guard. Maybe he’ll receive his clobbering comeuppance for all the chin-busting jabs of bludgeoning honesty he’s unapologetically delivered over the years.
His wife Lisa trains with him but is unsure she can stand to watch his bout.
But she’ll try not to avert her gaze on fight night at Cambridge’s Tapestry Hall. Hopefully, MacIntyre will last longer than the five minutes it took the event to sell out online.
Maybe he was right all along. A lot of people want to see him get punched in the face.
Three two-minute rounds can seem like a palooka’s eternity.
Time can stand flatfooted sometimes. Like when he waited for Emily and her mom to be released from McMaster so long ago.
Twenty-five weeks became twenty-six. That was monumental. The McMaster team helped the MacIntyres celebrate every milestone and focus on the next. Thirty-two weeks became the goal. Kelly and Emily got there and returned home.
Emily was born at 36 weeks at Grand River Hospital in Kitchener, where MacIntyre is a director today. Two days before Christmas, Emily entered the world at five pounds.
“That was the most emotional, amazing Christmas,” said MacIntrye, a runner of 14 marathons including Boston and New York City.
“Nothing else mattered except that healthy, happy Emily came into this world.”
Twenty-seven years later, as MacIntyre trained to fight for McMaster Children’s Hospital, someone else entered the world.
A month before Christmas, Emily gave birth to a healthy, happy baby girl named Isla.
Lisa can’t wait to spoil Isla rotten.
“Emily is now a mother,” grinned MacIntyre, who has two grandchildren. “It’s beautiful.”
To Support Jeff and make a donation to McMaster Children’s Hospital Foundation – Click HERE
