Today marked a historical day in my life. After weeks of anxious waiting, my baby girl, Carissa Dhea is finally born.
I am now officially someones father, and the feeling is undeniably ‘weird’ because I never saw myself as someones dad. My sisters said I’ll be called ‘samak Rissa’ although there are talks that my name would be changed to ‘Samak Car’. Well, nick names come from the village, so I’ll just have to wait and see what comes up soon.
But just looking at the birth of my princess, everything simply fits into place, with myself more than eager to show her to the world. Whether she will be creating history in the future, I don’t know. But she created history today, being my first born.
The name Carissa Dhea was actually picked somewhere in June, or maybe earlier. If I’m not mistaken, way before we even knew we were expecting (Again, if I am not mistaken). The choice was obvious with myself wanting my child’s name to represent both her parents, hence the letters ‘C’ and ‘D’. At that time, we hadn’t figured of a boy names because we somehow synced to like the name ‘Carissa’ without discussing of being pregnant.
The name ‘Dhea’ was ‘sort of’ my idea, because ‘Dhea’ sounded a little local, close to the Dayak community. ‘Dhea’ has no meaning although if you do Google it, you’d find that it’s short for of a hormone known as ‘Dehydroepiandrosterone’. Nonetheless, let me clarify that such similarities, either with anyone, or any other meaning, are coincidental, and was not planned in any way.
Anyway, there’s so many of you wishing me congratulations on social media, with some also personally texting me. This short post is also to thank you for the well wishes, and I hope Carissa would be safely in our arms soon. Her mother has yet to see her after the brief encounter during delivery (at press time).
Just in case we hadn’t said it out loud, Carissa has some sort of lung infection upon birth (Pneumonia), and she has been given antibiotics, hence meaning she will need to be warded for a couple of days, expected to only be home before Christmas. The doctors say she is stable, and she looks set to be fine, but they are not taking any chances as infants are very fragile. The infection was said to be caused by her overdue delivery (she is eight days overdue), but nothing concrete can be pointed out so far.
My heart literally sunk when I heard Carissa was having problems with her breathing, but the doctors explanations had calmed me down, and my brief research over the internet has helped me understand everything better, hence making me more relaxed. It’s hard to explain how what happened today effected me emotionally, but I guess, this is what it means to being a father. My wife and I are hopeful nothing more serious would happen.
But regardless, I have this feeling that Carissa will prove doubters wrong in the future. I’m not sure why, but I just have that feeling that she will be a fighter, as in a person who is willing to defy odds. But let’s talk about that in the future, when she actually does it.
For now, I just hope you will help us pray that Carissa will be able to wade off her Pneumonia and be 100% healthy.