Our Growing Family

My wife Josie and I added another member to our family this past week—a baby boy named Kieran Samuel McCarthy! We are very excited! Healthy baby and healthy mom—really couldn’t ask for much more. Let me share a few highlights.

One of the things that I was particularly nervous about was making sure our other son Tighe was in responsible and loving hands before we got to the hospital. Needless to say, trying to have a babysitter on call 24/7 for the better part of two weeks was a bit unnerving. But God has a sense of humor and will often point out that our worries are baseless when we factor Him into the equation. The night before Kieran was born my mom took Tighe for the night so that she wouldn’t have to get up should Josie go into labor. So Josie and I took advantage of being kid-free and enjoyed a great date night together. We had Mexican food. Somewhere we heard that spicy foods help move things along. It was at dinner that I looked at Josie and realized that if she went into labor tonight, all my worrying would have been for nothing. Sure enough, Josie woke up around 3 am with strong contractions.

We ended up watching a TV show at home while her contractions got increasingly consistent. It was the season premier of White Collar. And let me tell you, that show rocks--very entertaining! We arrived and were admitted to the hospital at about 5 am. When our nurse checked to see how far Josie had progressed I’ll never forget what she said: “Holy crap, you’re already 6 centimeters dilated.” The doctor arrived about an hour later and broke her water. Just an hour after that Josie was ready to push! Oh, and by the way, Josie did all of this without pain meds of any kind! I am telling you, my wife is absolutely incredible and tough as nails. Granted, she did have a pretty good coach at her side. But anyways, here is where things got a little interesting…

A lady was delivering twins in the room right next door to us. And the entire labor and delivery team was in the room with her. So our nurse thought that her and I would be the “team” delivering our new baby. I secretly thought I might poop my pants. The actual labor and delivery team ended up arriving just in time as Josie began to push. And since I had been given an overview on things, the doctor allowed me to scrub in to catch our newborn and announce the sex of our baby. It was perhaps one of the most exciting and exhilarating moments I’ve ever experienced!!!

This past week I was reminded of the miracle and privilege of life. Out of the overflow of His love God creates us in His image for dynamic love-relationship. In marriage two people come together and out of the overflow of their love they create new life in their image and His. What an amazing gift! We are now at home and adjusting to new life as a family. Please be in prayer for us as we battle sleepless nights and venture into this next stage of life.