Our First…

I`m a little behind in posting this announcement, but better late than never…

Our daughter Mia was born on May 25, 2009 (Memorial Day) @ 11:59am (6lbs 7oz) at Holy Cross hospital in Fort Lauderdale, FL , and since that first day our lives upgraded from just a married couple to now…parents! Yes, those people in our lives that, when we were kids, would drive us nuts and try to dictate our lives because they claimed “they knew better”. And as time passed, would throw that “I hope your kids act just like you did!” curse on us. Of course we laughed at such a notion, because our response typically was…”Pfft!…what kids??…who says I am even getting married?”.

 But, once again, they were actually right.

Kelly and I spent three days in the hospital, which went by in  blur, and completely threw off any sense of time and space. From the time my wife`s water broke @ 2:30am that monday morning until the delivery at 11:59a, I may have blinked once. Thankfully, the hospital staff was extremely helpful and listened to our myriad of questions that every new parent asks, and answered them without hesitation. I certainly didn`t turn into the hysterical dad that I always see TV portraying, where it ends in the dad-to-be fainting on the cold tile floor of the delivery room. That wasn`t me in the least. In fact, I got a front row seat to the event and even got to help! Wow…talk about labor.

If having a live human being pop out of your nether regions isn`t a weird enough experience, when we were finally discharged from the hospital that wednesday afternoon and walked through the door into our home, the first question on both our minds was “Okay, now what?”.  What were we supposed to do with this new person we`ve brought home? Just a few days prior, we were going on with our lives as usual and now suddenly BAM! we have a beautiful healthy baby girl that will need our care and attention. That is quite a bit to take in all at once.

But after seeing her eyes open up for the first time after the delivery, I knew any challenges that came our way would be well worth it.

We were a wreck the first week, and several sleepless nights were in our immediate future. Mia had jaundice for the first week and a half, but we were able to take care of it utilizing a machine that could be described as “sunlight in a box”. My wife was also breastfeeding, and it was tough to get Mia to eat anything since the jaundice kept her very lethargic, and she was gradually losing weight as a result.  Of course, no matter how many people told us that “it`s normal”, we as new parents allowed uncertainly to cloud our better judgment. Although, that was only part of the problem.

Mia also had trouble breastfeeding and would become frustrated all the time, which caused my wife to be stressed and lose a lot of self-confidence in what she was doing. We decided to look to a “lactation consultant” who, unfortunately, steered us the wrong way (also charging us like $150.00 for 2 hours of her time) and caused more confusion for us both in the end. I tried my best to be as supportive as I could, but even that was difficult because I had no answers and had no idea as to what I was doing. It was tough seeing both my girls going through so much and not being able to do anything about.

Well, as the Holy Spirit is our guide in all that we do, we prayed, and prayed hard. We prayed for an answer for days, until it finally did come in the form of our neighbor, Tamara. She had referred us to a lactation consultant who she trusted and knew would not steer us the wrong way. So, my wife called up the consultant (Jackie) to make an appointment and also mentioned to her the struggles we went though trying to things the way the other consultant showed her. Well, needless to say, Jackie was not too happy to hear that another consultant would give such bad advice, and told us to come by immediately because she knew we needed help (I later found out that Jackie sacrificed a dinner with her family so she could accommodate us that evening).

We went to visit her at her home, and to our surprise (although, not really so surprising) she opened us up in prayer before she started her assessment. We were like “Wow, a Christian!…praise God!”. And the rest was definitely a Spirit-lead experience. Jackie was able to diagnose one of the major problems as to why Mia wasn`t able to latch on while breastfeeding…she was “tongue tied”.  Apparently, the little tissue that connects the tongue to the bottom of the mouth was so far up to the front of her tongue that she couldn`t stick her tongue out as normal, which kept her from being able to latch on to the nipple. Aside from that, Jackie was able to give some real good advice to my wife which helped her cope and feel much more at ease. We were also referred to a local plastic surgeon who has been able to easily fix the “tongue-tied” issue in infants, which thankfully was a simple ten second, non-invasive procedure. Although, Kelly decided to not be in the room when they did the procedure, but dear ol` dad sucked it up!

In any case, Mia will be going on one month in just a few days, and I am happy to say that she is doing very well. Maybe a little too well sometimes because she seems to be growing stronger at a supernatural rate. She eats a lot and lets it go through her little processing factory just as fast, only to turn around and want to eat more.

Praise God for beautiful babies, poopy diapers, and every single moment that your child looks into your eyes and sees you as a superhero.

Happy (belated) Father`s Day to all you Dads who know just what I`m talking about. And to you Moms…I don`t know how you do it, but don`t ever give up.