I've always wondered how it feels like to be a dad and now, I'm a one week old dad.
And the feeling? Indescribable.
Have you had times where you are in an euphoria of sorts that you cannot quite find the words to describe the feeling? "Excitied"? Cannot quite describe the intensity. "Happy"? Way too mild compared to what I'm feeling right now. "Ecstatic"? Close enough but doesn't quite capture the other feelings that comes with the whole experience.
It's really a collection of words. Words like happiness, relieved, proud, awe, wonder, amazement, all rolled into one. I wonder if I could find that one word. Perhaps, perhaps not.
That aside, it is has been tremendous.
I am now a proud dad.
Maegan Tan Ee Ning was born on 18 May 2006 at 1101am. A thursday morning where Barcelona won the European Cup by beating Arsenal 2 - 1 in Paris. Arsenal's keeper Lehman was sent off for a professional foul on the 18th minute and the complexion of the game changed. Sol Campell scored first with ... I'm digressing.
Maegan was born with the cutest look in the face of this planet. She was born 3.25kgs or 7lbs 2.6oz and she was simply adorable.
Truth be told, she looked more like a prune when she was born. All wrinkly and blue, she burst out in a loud cry the moment she came out and caught her first breath. It was then that a huge weight on my shoulders was lifted.
You see, Maegan is our second child. Our eldest son Mattheus was born premature at 22 weeks + 3 days and could only survive 3 hours with us. We're grateful enough to hold our baby boy alive at all but I won't share too much about that experience here.
So for 9 months since Maegan was conceived, we really didn't know what to expect. Daphne and I lived in perpetual fear that history would repeat itself. We took every precaution imaginable and got the best medical advice we could afford. We were fearful to state the least and when Maegan let out her cry, a sense of relief came upon me.
You never know what to expect and what will happen until your child is born. Only then when the doctors say all is well, do you finally enjoy that moment of euphoria.
So to go from the delivery suite where Maegan was born to one week later where I'm lying in bed typing this blog, I must say it was an incredible one week.
I've witnessed the birth of my child, carried her in my arms, cuddle her to bed, showed her off to the whole world, took almost 300 pictures, made a 15 minute slideshow, bought medicine, helped Daphne breast feed, talked to her, kissed her, hugged her. All within one week.
And to top it all off, I survived.
This blog will be my journey of being dad. There's just so much details to share but I'm going to take my time to share this exciting journey that I'm embarking on with Daphne and Maegan.
It's almost one week exactly ago, to the hour, that Daphne's water bag burst in our bedroom.
As I look back at this one week, one momentous week, one history making week for Daphne and me, I have perhaps found the word that I've been looking for to describe how I felt. An old fashion word that I think sums up all the feelings and emotions that I had this whole week.
Grateful. I'm just grateful.
