Once again I was in the delivery room with my wife. As weak as I am against anything that makes me queasy, I would not have missed it for the world. My wife was a little afraid we would both miss the big event because I decided to take a shower before heading to the hospital. Please don't start bashing the father. The birth of my first daughter occurred about ten hours after we arrived at the hospital, so I couldn't see the problem in taking a quick shower. Besides it was one of those man showers, clothes off faster than Superman, seven minutes whole body wash, and another two minutes for after shower grooming. Hey, I wanted to look good for the delivery room photo.

Like most things in life, the worries never materialized and everything worked out. My daughter was born a couple weeks early, but healthy. Her Dad arrived at the hospital on time, and clean. My two daughters look so similar, yet even at three weeks it is so easy to see the character trait differences. My first daughter was born in a large hospital in Japan which had rules set in stone. It was kind of peculiar though. We were allowed to hold her when she was first born, and then she was taken away and put in a covered bed, like a fish in a bowl, in the same room with about twenty other screaming babies The next day when I rushed back to the hospital I was pleased to hear the nurse ask, ?Do you want to go see your daughter?? Of course I wanted to see her, all I could think about was seeing her, so you can imagine the disappointment when we got to the nursery and they hand me a pair of binoculars and announce, ?She is over there? pointing through two sets of windows, and of course the fish bowl bed.

I still believe this is the reason the first year was so difficult for my daughter to bond with me, or anyone else except her mother. I sometimes try to imagine what kind of experience that must have been to come into this world and in order to be protected from germs, taken away from love. It is impossible to prove that she wouldn't have cried so much had we been able to have a better bonding experience, but from what I have read, I think it could have been different.

All things in life can be a learning experience, and when you have a baby that cries like she did, you try many things to stop the tears and the sound that accompanies those tears. I have a whole collection of CDs that have been made to soothe babies, but the song that worked best was not a baby song at all but Lauryn Hill's To Zion. Luckily I haven't had to use this song so much with Maia Leann as she is such a great sleeper and has no troubles being held by others, but those few times a day when she does want to practice her vocals, To Zion works the same magic as it did with Hannah Faye. I was actually quite surprised when I tried it this time around and received the same, quick results?and it is also much easier for the parent to listen to than the specialty CDs.