Don't Let Go!

Today was Adele's swimming class.  It's her first time swimming since our trip to Cuba.  Naturally, she was a little nervous when she went into the pool.  In one instance, we had to lay the toddlers on their backs to do back floats.  So, I tried laying Adele down and she started squirming and screaming, because she didn't like the sound of water in her ears and she was also afraid of drowning.  These days, we're trying to get her to stop whining and screaming when she wants something, because she can pretty much say anything now.  So, I told her, "Adele, just say, 'Baba, please don't let go.'"  She grabbed onto me, looked into my eyes and said, "Baba, don't let go, don't let go!"  I almost teared up right there and then.  I held her in my arms and whispered into her ears, "I won't let go."

Adele, I'll never let go!

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Family Trip to Cayo Coco, Cuba - Part 1 of 3

On January 28, 2011, we headed to Cayo Coco, Cuba for our family trip.  This year, Renee's father, Johnson, is turning 60 and we (the kids) decided to treat him and Renee's mom, Anita, to a trip down south.  It's our first time going to the Caribbean; so, naturally, we were really excited.

We started planning for the trip during the Christmas holidays.  After deciding that we were going to an all-inclusive resort (as opposed to a cruise), we started reading reviews on tripadvisor.com.  Renee and I are crazy about beautiful beaches with clear, turquoise water, and after reading countless reviews and looking pictures, we converged on Cayo Coco, Cuba.  Cuba seemed to give the best bang for buck, and Cayo Coco was a relatively isolated place with beautiful beaches.  We ended up picking the Sol Cayo Coco resort.  We paid around $700 per person, which includes flight, accommodations (including 3 meals), and taxes.  Since Adele was under 2 years old, we had to pay a total of $16 of taxes for her!

Day 1 - January 28, 2011

Our Canjet flight was at 5:20 pm at Terminal 3 at Pearson airport.  I took the day off, but ended up working from home in the morning.  Every time I go on an extended vacation, the week leading up to the vacation is always a nightmare at work, because I usually have to either get things done before I leave or somehow hand it off to somebody else.

The day didn't start off too well.  I dropped Renee off at the bus stop in the morning and then drove back home.  The side street leading to my street has a no-left-turn sign that came into effect in the morning, but since I only turned left there during the evening, I just made the same turn, without taking notice the sign.  The cop who's there every morning had no problem stopping me and giving me a ticket.  Unfortunately, my acting was not good enough, and he was not about to give me a second chance.  He did say that "if he were in my place", he'd ask for a "first attendance meeting" to bargain with the prosecutor to have the charged revised to a lower one.

Anyway, that day turned out to be a busy and stressful day.  We parked at Park N Fly at Pearson (which costed about $60 for 8 days).  The flight was uneventful and we arrived in Cuba at around 9:30.  However, when getting off the plane, I got too excited and left my camera on-board.  I got really worked up, thinking that it was gone forever.  The Cuban airport personnel didn't seem too concerned and told me to wait.  I was thinking, "Great...I'm going to wait and they're going to tell me they couldn't find anything."  To top it off, I left my cellphone at one of the X-ray machines at the security check.  I almost lost it when I realized that.  But to my surprise, both the cellphone and camera were returned to me in quick order.  Not bad for a first impression!

We arrived at the hotel after a quick 10-minute bus ride.  Check-in was easy, and since it was close to the 10:00 pm closing time of the buffet, the receptionist advised us to grab a bite before heading off to our rooms.  She said we could leave our luggage out in the lobby and just go.  We were reluctant at first about doing that, but she reassured us that she'd watch over them for us.  After we came back out, we found our luggage as they were, safe and sound.  Good second impression!  We were starting to realize that Cuba is a relatively safe place, at least when compared to Mexico!

Our rooms were on the first floor and was fairly nice.  The resort was rated 4 stars, but in reality, it's probably a 2.5 star if it were in North America (better than a Days Inn, but not as good as a Residence Inn).  We are not terribly picky, and so, were more than satisfied.  The hotel also prepared a crib for us without us asking.  We didn't end up using it because we thought we'd let Adele sleep with us since she was on vacation too!

Day 2 - January 29, 2011

This was our first full day in Cuba.  We woke up and had a nice breakfast.  They had eggs cooked to your liking, pancakes, pastries, etc. at the buffet.  I thoroughly enjoyed it.  The pancakes were quite bland, but putting syrup on it cured that problem.  Overall, the food in Cuba is not what you'd get in North America or Europe.  They have the same stuff, but the taste is blander and the quality of the ingredients are not as good.  For example, beef would be tougher and very chewy.  Renee and I aren't picky eaters and so we were always able to find something we liked.

We met with Colin, the representative of our tour operator, Hola Sun Holidays.  He explained the hotel amenities, excursions, things to do/watch for, etc. to us.  He was very thorough and gave me a pretty good impression.  We decided to go on the catamaran excursion which included a lobster lunch and 2 snorkeling sessions.  It was quite pricey at 75 pesos per person.  To make things worse, the exchange rate at the hotel was brutal.  The rate as posted on the web was something like 1 peso to $0.94 CAD, but we ended getting a 1 peso to $0.84 rate.  We heard that the bank that was on-site had similar rates, but didn't go to check.  Oh well...

The weather was very nice compared to the freezing weather in Toronto.  It was in the low 20s and sunny, and a little windy by the beach, which by the way was absolutely heavenly.  So, we decided to stick around the pool for the first day.  The water in the pool was not heated, and so, it was quite cold to swim.  Adele had no problem though.  She really loves swimming.  Whenever we picked her out of the water, she'd start crying!  I'm not a very good swimmer and it kind of sucks, so I want my kids to be able to swim well.

We had a relaxing day and a nice dinner at the buffet.  After dinner, there were some vendors selling trinkets and stuff outside.  There was one vendor who had some toys and stuff and Adele saw a little banjo which interested her.  Renee worked her magic and haggled the price down from 5 pesos to 3 pesos.  We felt victorious for a few seconds and then thought that he needed the money more than we did, but of course, we weren't going to give him money back.  So, Renee asked me to grab the nicest piece of used clothing that I had brought to give to the Cubans and gave it to him.  It was a fall blazer type jacket that I used to wear, but had gone out of style.  We gave it to the vendor and he was very grateful for it and shook my hands.  It was such a cool moment.

That night, Adele went to bed in Rachel's room, and we went to see the show that the entertainment crew put on.  The theme revolved around Disney cartoons and there was dancing and lip-syncing to Disney music.  Adele would have enjoyed it, but me, not so much.  That was the only show that Renee and I saw because for the rest of the nights, Adele slept in our room, and naturally, we had to be there.

All in all, it was a first full day in Cuba!

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First Time Latin Dancing

Tonight, Renee and I went to a Latin dancing session.  She was invited by her co-worker to this event held by the Toronto Chinese Business Association.  The first half of the session was a networking session, mainly aimed at helping their members meet people for business purposes.  We obviously weren't there for the networking, but we met some nice people and had some good conversations.  We met a gentleman who helped people invest in real estate (i.e. buying a property, finding a tenant, etc.).

The latter part of the night was a Latin dancing lesson.  It was taught by Renee's co-worker, Josie, who teaches dancing on the side.  She was really good.  So, we learned a little Merengue and a little Salsa.  Honestly, it was more fun that I had expected.  I actually didn't want to go at first...partly because I don't particularly enjoy dancing, and partly because it was a busy week.  So, anyway, this was fun.  It was my first time learning how to dance and I think I wouldn't mind taking up more dancing if time allowed.  Maybe in a few years when my various commitments taper off.

So, if you're a guy and your girlfriend or wife asks you to go dancing, try it out.  It may be more fun that you imagine!

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Kids Will Grow Up

Last night after dinner, Renee and I spent some time with Adele playing with Playdough.  On most weeknights, we try to spend as much time as we can with her before she goes to sleep.  Because she sleeps at around 8:30 pm, we only get to see her for a couple of hours each day.  We really miss out a lot and it's a shame, but that's the reality of life, I guess.  This is the reason why I think we need to invest aggressively (but safely) to have an early retirement, but that's a totally different discussion (see my other blog).

So, while we were playing with Adele, I walked away for a while, and immediately, she cried out to me, "Baba, play Playdough, play Playdough!"  I then walked back and said, almost not thinking about the words, "Yuet Yuet, one day, you will grow up and not want to play with Baba anymore."  Immediately after those words, a feeling of melancholy came over me.  Those words are probably going to come true at some point in time.  The saddest thing is that there are times now that I wished Adele would not require so much attention from me.  I have different things to do like watch TV, surf the web, write blogs...How ironic!  When Adele grows up to be an adolescent, I can just imagine that we would make a switch.  I'd want her to spend time with me, but she would rather hang out with friends, etc.

That is life...and so, I'm going to consciously maximize the amount of attention I give to her, while she still wants it.  Sometimes that's more easily said than done, but every time I find myself doing something else when I can be spending time with her, I'll be sure to correct myself!

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First Time in San Francisco

I'm in San Francisco right now, on business.  It's my first time to SF, but I haven't seen much of it.  The 5 of us arrived Wednesday at 12:20 pm.  Got to the hotel by around 2:00 pm.  There was a World Junior Hockey finals at 7:30 pm EST (4:30 PST) and the crew wanted to watch the game.  So, we headed off to a sports bar and had lunch while we waited for the game to start.  Canada lost, by the way, 3-5 to the Russians.  The Russians scored all 5 goals in the 3rd period.  What a disappointment!

We stuck around for a bit after the game and left the bar at around 8:30 pm.  But since we're 3 hours behind, it was really 11:30 pm.  I was dead tired when we got back to the hotel.  Called home and talked to Renee for a bit.  Adele was sleeping, naturally.  Then took a shower and went to bed.

I managed to get up at 6:00 am (but it's really 9:00 am to my body) to prep for the customer meeting.  Went downstairs and had a pretty good breakfast.  We stayed at the Hampton Inn in Alameda.  Hampton Inns are usually pretty consistent.  They have good mattresses and a not-too-bad breakfast selection.  I had some scrambled eggs, sausages, and a waffle.  I'd stay away from the scrambled eggs.  I'm pretty sure they were powdered eggs.

The customer meeting today went quite well.  Hopefully, we get this job as it's a pretty big program, with potentially 3 to 4 lines down the road.  Oh...do you know what I do for a living?  Maybe I should elaborate a little bit.  My company, ATS, designs and builds factory automation for all sorts of manufacturers.  I'm not allowed to disclose customer names, but this particular customer makes medical diagnostic devices.  Our machine would perform the assembly of the components into the final product and put it into its packaging.  Eventually, you'd see these devices being sold at your local pharmacy.

I've been at ATS for almost 7 years now.  I really can't believe that!  It's probably the longest I have stayed anywhere, doing essentially the same thing.  Good thing is I don't feel like it's repetitive.  I guess that says something about the "enjoyability" of my job.  I'm happy with what I'm doing.  It's pretty much what I've envisioned to be doing when I went to school.  However, as with all jobs, I wished the pay was a little better (who wouldn't, right?).

So, I'll be flying back to Toronto tomorrow afternoon (Friday).  I miss Renee and Adele already!  There's a Chinese saying that says, "A temporary absence beats a new marriage (小別勝新婚)".  I guess that's true!  Anyway, this entire post sounds like I'm just thinking out loud.  Maybe it's the beer that I had tonight...

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A Memorable Birthday...at the Emergency Room

Poor Adele Waiting to be Seen by a Doctor

I just turned 32!  I can't say it's one of the best birthdays I've had, but it'll definitely go down as one of the most memorable.  The last time I wrote, we were in the emergency room at Scarborough Grace Hospital, because Adele had a fever for about 4 days.  It's been 2 days since that and Adele has been getting better.  The doctor couldn't really diagnose what was wrong that night, because Adele kept on crying and so he couldn't hear her breathing very well.  He also couldn't look inside her ear to see if there's any infection because there was too much ear wax.  Because she wasn't very calm and was moving about, he couldn't really clean her ears either.  Anyway, he prescribed some antibiotics just in case it was a bacterial infection.

Since then, she's gotten a lot better.  Before, she was sleeping something like 22 hours a day and wouldn't eat anything.  The past 2 days have been better.  She's been moving about, playing, talking, and eating some solid food.  So, there was definitely progress.  Today, we brought her over to Joanne's (my sister-in-law) mom's place to play with her cousins.  Everything was going swell until we gave her one of grandma's oatmeal cookies.  She probably inhaled bits of it and began to cough every 2-3 seconds.  This continued for about half an hour.  We gave her milk, patted her back...essentially did everything we could think of, but the coughing was still the same.  If you are a parent, you would know how heart wrenching that would be.  So, we left and drove back to my parents' place where we're staying.  We thought maybe we could do something there.  We tried putting her in a steamy bathroom and hope that the humidity would help...nope, didn't work.  We tried giving her more fluids.  We googled for other remedies, but to no avail.  At about 1.5 hours after she started choking (we'll call it that), we decided to bring her to the emergency room.  (Parents, imagine...1.5 hours of non-stop coughing...I want to cry just thinking about it)

So, we went to Grace Hospital again.  A pregnant lady (she claimed 6 weeks) was with the triage nurse, complaining about abdominal pain.  When the nurse saw Adele coughing incessantly, she kicked the pregnant lady out and began admitting Adele.  I was parking the car at this point, so I found this out from Renee afterwards.  No wonder when I walked in, there was this nervous man who kept walking into the triage area. Anyway, the nurse helped us bypass the waiting room outside the emergency room and routed us to the inner waiting room.  Rewind a few minutes and the triage nurse was weighing Adele.  Adele cried at the top of her lungs because she really wanted to be with mommy.  I think that 30 seconds of crying helped her dislodge the cookie from her airways.  So, after sitting down in the waiting area, we suddenly realized that her coughing had stopped completely.  It was like a light switch...cookie in, cough on...cookie out, cough off!

Renee wanted to leave at that point because she thought we were wasting the hospital's resources, but I wasn't going to take any chances.  So, we agreed to have the staff take an x-ray of Adele's lungs.  It must have been terrifying for Adele, because to get her to be still during the x-ray, the technician had to put her in a "fixture". She had to sit on a bicycle seat and then her arms had to be held high.  Then two curved polycarbonate sheets closed around her body.  She was crying her head off at first, but I was there to reassure her.  I was kind of surprised that she stopped crying after about half a minute and was only making whining noises.

The doctor then finally saw her and confirmed that she had pneumonia from the x-ray.  This doctor wanted the pediatrician who was on duty to take a look at Adele just to be sure.  The pediatrician was very good.  She was an older lady and was very experienced by the way she handled Adele.  She sat down beside us and  just asked us all the background questions, until Adele was calm and started to fall asleep. Then, she listened to her breathing and did the other usual checks.  She explained that Adele's case of pneumonia was not very severe, but was present, nonetheless.  Since it was less than 2 days from when we first started giving her the antibiotics, it was a good idea to continue it.  By the end of tomorrow, her fever should go away.  She also thought that Adele's resumption of activity was a good sign that she was already recovering.  So, she sent us off with another prescription, in case Adele's fever was still there after tomorrow.

We got home around 11:30 pm and Adele went to bed very quickly and very soundly.  It's 1:40 am now, but I'm still kind of worked up and don't feel too sleepy.  The good thing is that I haven't heard her cough at all since she fell asleep.

So, my birthday was quite eventful.  It was not the best birthday I've ever had, but then again, it was not the worst either.  Things could have turned out much worse than they did.  I'm just grateful things seem to be better now.  We've decided to cancel the New Year's Eve party that we were planning to have at our place tomorrow, but it's no big deal.  As long as Adele gets better, we really couldn't ask for anything more.  Actually, I can...Renee also started coughing about 2 days ago.  I pray that it wouldn't get any worse.  For those of us who are healthy...seriously, don't take it for granted!  And for you parents who have gone through this as well, you know our pain, and we know yours too!  And for you yet-to-be parents (especially our friends on whom we cancelled our party), please forgive us even if you don't quite understand.  It's one thing to be sick yourself, and quite another to see your child sick.  I would prefer the former, without even a thought!

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Visit to the Emergency Room

It's been 4 days since Adele has had her fever.  We've been giving her Advil and she's still a little hot at 101 degrees F.  We were going to bring her to the doctor's in the morning, but she was flopping around in bed during the night.  Afraid that her condition was getting worse or there was some other more serious condition (e.g. meningitis), we took her to the emergency room at Scarborough Grace Hospital (we were at my mom's).


We were greeted by a nurse in a pretty bad mood.  It almost felt like we were at fault to be there.  She was absolutely not gentle with Adele when measuring her weight and giving her Tylenol.  I'm glad I'm getting top notch service for my tax dollars.  After waiting for about an hour, we were called in from the waiting room to a second waiting room.  This second waiting room was really just a hallway and there weren't enough chairs.  So, our friendly nurse decided to kick me out. That explains why I'm writing this while sitting in the first waiting room.


Ok, enough ranting.  Adele seemed to have improved since we woke her.  On the way here, we had Christmas music in the car and she sang along when we played Jingle Bells, which is her favourite Christmas tune at the moment.  I really hope it's just a normal cold or flu or some viral infection.  We had plans to go to Niagara-on-the-lake with her the day after tomorrow, along with Lai Chuen and friends.  We rarely get to spend time with her during our normal work week.  So, that would be fun for all of us.  But those plans may fall through now.  Oh well, there's really nothing we can do to change things.


For now, we'll continue praying...

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Helplessness

This December has not been good in terms of health for our family.  I was literally sick for 3 weeks, starting at the end of November.  Then, about 4 days ago, Adele came down with a fever and a cough.  Since this happened over Christmas, there were some mandatory family events that we could not miss.  So, we dragged her with us to a couple of parties, and even to my own birthday party (which was a surprise, by the way...but more on that in another post).  This is the 4th day that she's had the fever and we're starting to get a little worried.  My brother, Eric, who's a family doctor, took a brief look at her and thought she was not in too bad of a shape.  But he didn't have his "tools" (what are they called anyway?), so he couldn't properly examine her.  In any case, she's just constantly tired and is sleeping probably 80% of the day.  It sort of worries me what infection she's got.

Her cough is also not helping.  Because she's so young (almost 20 months), she doesn't really know how to control a cough.  So, for the past couple of nights, she's gagged herself during coughing and threw up in bed.  It's the most painful thing to see...the poor little girl going through all this pain.  I never understood why my parents always hassled me to see a doctor when I was sick, but I guess now I do.

To make matters worse, Renee seems to have contracted the infection from Adele.  She's feeling dizzy and has a headache and a sore throat.  They're now sleeping upstairs.  And what can I do to help?  I just feel so helpless and useless.  I remember reading or hearing somewhere (believe it's originally from St. Bernard of Clairvaux...after some googling) that there are 4 degrees of love, in ascending order:

1. Loving self for self
2. Loving other for self
3. Loving other for other
4. Love self for other

The least selfless love is loving the self for the sake of the self.  E.g.) I buy an iPad for myself because I want to own an iPad.  The second degree is loving another person for sake of self.  E.g.) I love my wife, because I feel good when I love somebody.  The third degree, often thought of as the highest degree, is loving the other for the sake of the other.  E.g.) I love my wife and sacrifice for her so that she would be better off.  However, that is not the highest degree.  The highest degree is loving the self for the sake of others.  And here is where it applies to my situation.  I must love myself (i.e. take good care of myself) for the sake of Renee and Adele.  Since they are both sick, I need to care for myself first, because if I also become sick, then that would do them no good.  So, the love of the self is in fact, a selfless love.  It is the highest degree because it may be most difficult, but yet, the right thing to do.  The direct application in "real" life is during an airplane safety video, "when the oxygen masks drop from the overhead compartment, put the mask on before helping others with their masks..."

So, I'm going to go to eat some fruits, take a nice hot shower, shave (yeah, I shave in the evenings...weird!), and go to bed early tonight, because I need to love myself!  And to all you caregivers out there, please take good care of yourself too!

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My Blog

I never knew I liked writing so much!  Maybe I should have taken English literature instead of Mechanical Engineering in school?!  Anyway, I really regret not having started blogging earlier.  In July of 2009, I started The Catholic Investor blog.  Ever since I started seriously investing, I found that I had so many ideas regarding the topic and really wanted to share them.  However, I didn't feel it was right to bomb my close friends with emails about something in which they may not necessarily have too much interest.  And quite frankly, I wouldn't mind earning a few bucks from putting ads on a blog!  So, I started blogging.  After almost a year and a half, I have a steady readership (of which I'm fairly surprised and grateful for).  But something was missing...

What is it?  When my boss's father-in-law, who was an artist, passed away, in the funeral home was displayed the paintings that he had painted during his lifetime.  My boss told me that this collection of paintings left a very tangible legacy of his father-in-law.  It was something his children and grandchildren can look at years from now and remember that these were the masterpieces of their (grand)father.  This made me think.  What will I leave behind to my children and grandchildren as my legacy?  I wanted something more than just memories, as even the most precious ones will fade with time.  What more can I leave to them than my own personal thoughts and a record of things that happened in their father's life, which will no doubt involve their own lives as well?  This will be my gift to them.

The first post of this blog was actually a note I wrote on my Facebook page a couple of days after Adele was born.  I wrote it while Renee and her were sleeping soundly in the hospital room.  That was the beginning of my blogging journey, and so, it is appropriate for me to put that note in this blog.

And so, here begins a new page in the journey of my life...actually, our lives (Renee, Adele and me, and who knows how many more to follow).  I don't know who will eventually stumble onto this blog, but if no one else other than my family reads it, I would still be so very grateful and glad.

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Motherly Love: A Chronicle of Adele's Birth

To Renee, my daughter's mother. You are the love of my life and from you comes the second love of my life.

And
To Susanna, my mother;
To Anita, Renee's mother;
Without you, we wouldn't be here!

And
To Mary, our heavenly Mother. Without your intercession, I would not be writing this!

It's 12:54 am on May 12, 2009. I'm sitting here in Room 368 at the Trillium Health Centre in Mississauga. My wife, Renee, and my newborn daughter, Adele, are sleeping soundly beside me. As I reflect on what happened in the last 72 hours, I can't help but feel a little overwhelmed. I don't think I will ever fully understand a mother's love, but having seen what Renee had to endure leading up to Adele's birth, I think I now have a better appreciation for a mother's selfless love for her children.

I remember when I was young, in Chinese school we studied a famous essay called, "Motherly Love" (母愛). I never quite understood why so much emphasis was put on a mother's love, as opposed to a father's love. I now have a bit of an idea.

Renee's contractions started around 2:00am on May 9 (yes, the date is correct). They were not very regular, nor were they very intense. She didn't even wake me up at that point. They were, however, uncomfortable enough to have kept her up all night. The next morning, we canceled all of our events for the day, in hope that labour would begin shortly. The contractions did become stronger and more frequent, but not frequent enough (i.e. once every 5 minutes) to require going to the hospital. After dinner, the contractions became significantly more intense and we knew we were getting close. Just after midnight, both of us were fairly tired and wanted to see if we could catch a quick nap, but lying down only slowed down the contractions and so, we forced ourselves to stay up.

At 4:00 am, we decided to head off to the hospital. We went to wake up Rachel (Renee's sister) but found out that she was just lying in bed, having trouble falling asleep because of all the excitement. We got to the hospital at 4:20 and got assessed at around 4:45. At that point, Renee was 2 cm dilated, which was apparently not enough to be admitted to a delivery room. We were instructed to walk around the hospital until 7:00 am because walking helps the cervix dilate a little more quickly. So, that's what we did and we also went to the Tim Hortons in the hospital to grab some breakfast.

When we got back at 7:00, we waited in a room for 45 minutes until being assess again. This time, Renee was 5 cm dilated and was officially admitted. Our nurse, Annie, was really helpful and encouraging. To her, everything we did was perfect and Renee always made excellent progress. By 11:00, Renee was 7 cm dilated. At that point, I could notice that the contractions really started to become very painful. Before this, Renee was always walking, talking, and laughing in between contractions, but now, she mainly rested and closed her eyes while she could. And when the contractions did come, her grip on my hands were a lot firmer and I could feel the sweat in her palms.

At one point, Annie got a phone call that her daughter-in-law had given birth to a daughter, and naturally, she had to leave to see her new grandchild. Another nurse, Barb, came to replace her. Barb was also an excellent nurse. By this time, around 12:30, Renee was 9 cm dilated, but there was a lip at her cervix which prevented Adele's head from progressing farther downwards. Barb had to use a catheter to empty Renee's bladder to create more room. It looked like a painful procedure to me, but Renee didn't complain one bit. I was absolutely astonished by her endurance!

Finally, after 1:00, the lip on the cervix was gone, after Renee changed to a sideways position. It was finally time to push the baby out. I could tell it was the most painful part of the delivery because Renee said to me a few times that she couldn't push or that she was in a lot of pain. I felt so helpless because all I could do was tell her that soon it would be over and we would be able to see our daughter. I wanted to take the pain away, but all I could do was watch her experience it over and over again. I asked myself silently, how I could ever get mad again at Renee or give her attitude or be impatient with her, for all the pain that she has had to endure to give birth to our child. 

Then, at around 2:00, we saw the tip of Adele's head slowly emerging with every push. Finally, at 2:13 pm, on May 10, 2009, our daughter Adele was born. It all happened so quickly. I could not quite fathom how a baby of such size could be born in this way at all. I simply cannot imagine the pain that Renee felt. 

And there she was, Adele, my daughter, lying in front of me. You know the feeling when you're on a roller coaster when it goes down that first big hill? When your heart seems to want to jump out of your body? When your heart beats 200 times a minute? That was the feeling I had when I saw her there. I could not help but let tears well up in my eyes. Doctor Stein then handed me a pair of scissors to cut the umbilical cord. My hand trembled so much that I missed the cord the first time. The nurse then put Adele into Renee's arms and she held her ever so tenderly. Doctor Stein had to stitch Renee up, and while he applied the local anesthetic with a huge needle, Renee's gaze was still fixated on Adele, smiling and tearing at the same time; she did not flinch one bit. All she cared about was that Adele was now here, in her arms. And this is the epitome of a mother's love!

Now, I understand why we should call our mothers more often. Now, I understand why we had to study the essay, "Motherly Love". It is for all of the sacrifices that they have made for us, not only during our births but over their entire lives. We fathers, will always ponder what it is like to give birth, but that is the privilege reserved for mothers, and we must forever respect that and be grateful. Now, go tell your mother you love her!

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