What a great year! Worthy of being in VH1’s “Best Year Ever” episode. I got promoted at work, bathed in 9 different beaches, become closer with my family, closer with friends, and received the gift of creating life: my little lady, Seanna Sofia.
She’s so beautiful. So adorable. So gentle. Tender and sweet. Just like the flesh that made her and carried her in her womb. I love how she smiles in her sleep, how she opens her mouth wide and closes her eyes when she yawns, how she makes sounds like a kitten when she cries — But I’m getting ahead of myself.
So let me start with the first day, January 1, 2009. Man, what a party! What a crazy youth-spirited reckless night! What loss of control, what disregard for the norm of society. It was fun. To be careless one last time. To sing along songs, out loud; to dance like a high schooler, raising a glass of champagne to love and life, and bring in the new year one last time without second thoughts, toasting along friends and my beloved Monica. Aniceto and Jose, Primo Productions, you are to blame for such madness. And that was it. No more partying like a rockstar. We felt that it was not for us anymore.
As far as getting the new year started, Bianca, Monica and I went snowboarding and man it was about 75% torture and 25% fun. We ended up on the ground so many times that I felt I had bursted an instestine. We hit the ground so hard so many times that even though we had gotten the “All Day” pass until 10PM, by 5PM we couldn’t get up anymore. When we fell, it took us a good 5 minutes of just laying there, motionless, groaning, gathering strength to get back up. The problem was that when we went, even though it was cold, it wasn’t snowing. Instead of snow, there was ice on the slopes. It was basically trying to snowboard on frozen concrete. Looking back, I don’t think it was the determination to master the bunny slope that kept us there, it was plain masochism. This was just plain painful. I wish we could have made it to the regular “grown up” slope though, but we’ll shamefully admit that the Bunny Slope punished us so bad we got scared. After we left, Bianca looked like she had gotten in bar brawl, Monica looked like she had married a wifebeater, and I, well, I still looked good.
In February, we visited our good friends Yazmine and JP in Puerto Rico. We really enjoyed our stay with them and got to visit different parts of the island. I had many times seen the sun at sunset, but never actually sat down to contemplate it and enjoy it. When we visited Dorado, we did exactly that. And it was beautiful. It was an orange reddish circle with a soothing glow, slowly being swallowed by the dark sea and the endless dance of the waves. I wrote about this beautiful experience here. We also got to visit hidden coastlines and experience Puerto Rico underwater; we went Scuba diving in La Parguera, a diving spot where you can supposedly spot whale sharks during their migration. Unfortunately, we were a day late. The guides said they had seen a 40 foot whale shark the day before. What a disappointment Puerto Rico was a lot of fun and its waters hold a special place in our heart since that’s where Seanna’s nickname “Sirena” came from. I was going to write about our scuba diving experience but didn’t get to it because Monica surprised me with the news that she was with child. I won’t be able to finish the second half of our Puerto Rico experience, but below are some videos and pictures we took of our dive trip. Although it was nice and full of corals, we were disappointed that there were very little fish. Weird.
Video of Scuba diving. From getting into the water, diving to bottom, seeing the “wall of corals”, to getting back on boat:
So through a simple Status Update on Facebook by a friend, Fatima, a furious, heated conversation was unleashed. Who has it better, moms or dads? Men and women alike rallied on both sides, battlelines were drawn, emotions ran high, tensions rose comparable to the Cold War days. Below are my thoughts based on my experience.
In terms of difficulty, I will say that women have it 65% vs dad’s 40%, yes it totals to 105% because, well, 35% for the dad is just too little, but 50% just seems unfair to the mom.
Yes, the woman will experience some changes, morning sickness and an expanding belly. However, what most people who haven’t gone through a pregnancy don’t know is that during first trimester the woman will have an “enhanced” look to her, sure, there will be some morning sickness, but it’s a tradeoff as it is offset by bigger boobs and booty (we latin men have an appreciation for good round booty that seems to keep growing). Not all women experience bad morning sickness. So as far as the first trimester goes, we’ll say that the dad has the advantage with 65% because he gets a hotter wife with no side effects on his end; the wife gets 35% because of the enhanced looks with side effects.
Now the 2nd trimester: This trimester is awesome and it’s also the easiest! The morning sickness if gone. Then the wife is starting to show a belly. You find out the sex of the baby. Everyone is excited and congratulating left and right. Generally people wait until the 2nd trimester to let the general population know about the pregnancy. Consider this the “honeymoon” stage. So, I have to give the advantage to the dad 60% vs 40% mom because of the slight weight gain.
The third trimester: This is the tougher part of the pregnancy. The baby moves and you can see it! You’ll see an elbow, or a leg sticking out of the belly. It gives dad and mom a “glimpse” into their little one’s behavior. However, this is a 70 % disadvantage for the mom because she can’t sleep how she wants to and is awakened by the baby’s kicks, which in turns causes a 30% disadvantage to the dad as he is also awakened by mom trying to get comfortable. This is the stage that the mom is getting bigger (she’s hungry all the time), her back hurts, her feet hurt, extremities get swollen (can’t wear wedding ring) and by the last month of pregnancy, she waddles around like a penguin. Mom doesn’t feel as attractive — but this is a huge flaw. Any men will tell you that when his wife is pregnant, that alone, for some innate reason, some natural process, some inalienable truth, is a turn on. Don’t ask why or how it happens, it’s one of those things that just do, like the migration of birds. Knowing that your beloved is carrying your child, your seed, your lineage, your generation; that you will only get to see her like that maybe only once, maybe twice, maybe three or fives times in your life, that is a turn on. Besides, that’s the stage when she glows, literally, take pictures, you’ll see what I am saying. This is the stage when she’s most radiant, more beautiful in a profound way. Yet, she doesn’t see it and this is the part when intimacy becomes tougher. So before you give the dad 0% credit, know that he is more than likely sex starved and is walking on tip toes in case the wife has one of those emotional tantrums hot pregnant women have been known for.
Seanna Sofia- my love, my little piece of heaven. God has been graceful to us and given you to us as a blessing. So here we are now, 7 days from when we left the hospital (which have felt like weeks already). We have been truly blessed with the support of our family and friends. We really mean that. I’m about to put a revolving door in our home because we constantly having visitors come over and bless us with their presence, well wishes and gifts. Since we got home from the hospital, the grandmas have been very busy. They have come to help us clean, cook us their secret homemade “post partum” soups and their traditions from Latin America of what to do or not to do the baby or Monica. We have been blessed with gifts from our friends. You have made us feel very blessed and very special and we really appreciate it.
I have said this before on Facebook, and I’ll say it again. When people told us that there would be no sleep, they really meant NO SLEEP! For the first few days, we were on a time warp. This is what a typical cycle looks, assuming that we put her to sleep at 11PM:
1:00 AM – Seanna wakes up
1:05 AM – Feeding begins, which can last 20-30 minutes at a time.
1:35-40 – Baby needs to be burped, which this too can last 10-15 minutes even though she burps herself, yes she burps herself. When she’s done feeding, I lift her up and while she’s on her way to my shoulder, she burps. Cool huh? Well, she doesn’t fully burp everything out, so I have to continue pounding her back until all that gas is out.
1:40 AM — We start the diapers changing process. This is tricky. Sometimes I think that this little angel of ours is going to be an astronaut because she comes equipped with her own propulsion system. Let me just say that loud noises can be heard echoing throughout the room while she’s been changed. Then the bombardment starts. Apparently, she likes to wait until we have changed her to user her propulsion system again, and again. We have actually had to change diapers 3 times in a row and it has taken us up to 30 minutes. In fact, one night Monica was changing her diaper and I fell asleep. About 40 minutes later I woke and Monica was still in the same spot, still changing Seanna’s diaper because she had decided to poop in stages. Oh man, and she fights. We have to hold her legs in the air because she’s going to get it all over herself. This is always an adventure, especially when Mari changes her. Mari was “squirted” with some smelly and wet projectiles twice while changing her (good job my little angel! Score one for daddy!). We have blown a big box of wipes already.
A week ago, our child was touched by the hand of God. Then at that moment, at that instant, our child… our love child had his or her first heartbeat.
When she told me, I felt the urge to cry. I knew not what to say. A sudden surge of emotions charged within my heart and made my way towards her, my beloved, the soon to be mother of our love child. I wanted to scream, I want to yell, to jump like a wild monkey, a crazy fool, like the careless spirited kid of my youth. But I could not. No, instead, I closed my eyes, and unleashed my joy in the arms of my beloved, my Monica. I hugged her. Held her tight to me, where she belonged. With yearning eyes, I looked at the opened windows of her soul and I searched for him, or her, who was in her, in her womb, wanting to reach him with my hands, wanting to touch his or her face. I searched for that child who knows God in His perfection better than we do. God has said “I knew you before you were in the womb.” And now, his or her heart beat is proof, yet again, of God’s love. God has blessed us with the greatest of gifts. She and I have nourished our love and now life has come from it.
Puerto Rico was a lot of fun and its waters hold a special place in our heart since that’s where Seanna’s nickname “Sirena” came from. I was going to write about our scuba diving experience but didn’t get to it because Monica surprised me with the news that she was with child. I won’t be able to finish the second half of our Puerto Rico experience, but below are some videos and pictures we took of our dive trip. Although it was nice and full of corals, we were disappointed that there were very little fish. Weird.
