Mae Mae - My Firstborn

On August 7th, 1982, I became a father for the first time.

Jeana and I were living in a 2-bedroom duplex on Cedar Street in Bellflower, California. We had recently moved from a 1-bedroom apartment in Norwalk, as we anticipated the need for more space.

We both worked at a small Christian school in Norwalk. Jeana was a secretary and I taught a 5th and 6th grade combination class. I also served as a football and basketball coach. I loved my job but the pay was nearly poverty level. But we never complained or demanded more... we just made it work.

Our sparsely furnished abode was made up of a few pieces of second hand furniture that people had given us. We couldn’t afford a bed, so we slept on a 4 inch thick piece of foam that we laid on the bedroom floor.

It was a Saturday morning and I had an alarm set because I had volunteered to haul some of my students to Disneyland. Jeana, who was closing in on her due date, chose to stay home and relax. But... there would be no relaxing on that day.

Before my alarm could awaken me, Jeana’s moans drove me into consciousness. False labor? Nope. It was the real thing. We got dressed and headed for Downey Community Hospital.

We stood at a desk in the maternity ward, answering a never ending list of questions from a nurse who was busy typing away. Jeana’s contractions became more frequent and intense. Suddenly... I heard the sound of someone pouring a jug of water onto the tile floor.

It was, in fact, “water”... sort of. But it didn’t come from a jug... unless I wanted to consider my wife a “jug.” Yeah, her water broke. I was taught about this phenomenon in our prenatal classes but it still greatly startled me.

Wide eyed, I anxiously blurted out to the nurse, “Is that normal? Is everything okay?” The nurse chuckled and assured me that I had nothing to worry about.

Jeana was admitted, endured a relatively short period of labor and like a rock star, delivered our first child naturally, without pain medication. I was allowed in the delivery room and was able to witness the miracle of

birth. The actual birth served as our 1982 “gender reveal party.” It was a girl. She was a certain weight and was born at a specific time... both statistics fathers know at the time but then rapidly forget... never to remember again.

And just like that, our lives were changed forever.

We named our daughter, Maelynne Jean and as you might expect with such a unique and unusual name, there is a backstory. When we announced our pregnancy, both my mom and my sister reminded me that years ago, I had made them a promise to name my first daughter after them. The “promise” sounded vaguely familiar but I was baffled as to how and why I would have made that vow to both of them. My solution was to create one name out of two names. I mashed up their middle names. “Mae” was my mom’s middle name and “Lynne” was my sister’s middle name. Put them together and I created the beautiful name... Maelynne. Her middle name, Jean, was My mother-in-Law’s name. So we made three family members happy with the naming of our first child. Not bad, huh?

Over the next few months, we received a crash course on “Parenting for Dummies.” Everything was new. So many firsts. There was lots of uncontrollable crying, frequent feedings, strange sounds, odd smells, contorted faces and explosive bowel movements that somehow migrated north, to the middle of Maelynne’s back. And these events took place without warning and at all hours of the day and night.

I was a nervous dad. I would often wake up in the middle of the night and feel compelled to check on my baby daughter. I would bend down, over her crib and listen carefully to make sure I could hear her breathing. Sometimes, when I wasn’t sure that I could hear her, I would nudge her until I could see her move or hear her breathe. I’m not the only parent who had this habit, am I?

When Maelynne was four months old, she caught a cold or some sort of upper respiratory illness. My middle of the night checks on her increased in frequency as my concern grew. During one of those checks at around 4 AM, it was obvious that her breathing was very labored. We needed to get our baby to the emergency room.

I awakened Jeana and we scrambled to get dressed. We arrived at the hospital and they took us right back. They lay her on the examining table and she looked lifeless. The doctor came in and examined her, looked at me and said, “They go downhill quickly at this age.”

I think this man in the white lab coat just told me that my baby was dying.

I ran out of the room, to the nearest restroom and vomited violently.

When I got back to the examining room, the doctor was telling Jeana that Maelynne needed to be admitted and that we needed to get her to the nearest Children’s Hospital where they would be better equipped to handle someone so young. They gave us the option of an ambulance or we could take her ourselves. I didn’t want her out of my sight and so I made the decision to transport her myself. They told us they’d call our pediatrician and that he would meet us there.

I prayed so hard during that drive. I told God that we just got her and surely he didn’t want to take her back so soon! I was an emotional mess.

The earliest rays of sunlight were just starting to peak over the eastern horizon as we pulled up

into the Children’s Hospital. As we exited the car and headed toward the door, I noticed that Maelynne appeared to be more alert and her breathing wasn’t as labored as it had been before.

Our pediatrician was there and quickly examined her. He said, “She is in far better shape than what was described to me over the phone.”

I affirmed that she was in bad shape but that we had prayed very hard on the drive over. He said, “Well, it looks like your prayers were answered. There is no need to admit her to the hospital.”

Maelynne recovered quickly over the next couple of days but her daddy didn’t. That horrible fear that I experienced became the template for me whenever any of my kids would get so little as a sniffle.

Sometime around Christmas of 1982, we found out that we were pregnant with our second child. Man... that was quick and not really part of our master plan but we embraced the blessing of God’s sovereign hand.

One year and 10 after the birth of our first, we welcomed our second child. Again... a girl. This

would become somewhat of a pattern. Although we anticipated chaos with two in diapers, we experienced anything but. What we ended up with was two girls who bonded instantly and became best friends for life.

We enrolled Maelynne at Gethsemane Christian School in Long Beach as a kindergartener, where she attended through the first half of her sixth grade year when we uprooted the family and moved to Grinnell, Iowa. Although her first 10+ years of existence was in California, Grinnell would become the location that she considered her “home town.”

As she grew up, Maelynne was pretty close to being the model child. I’m serious. She gave us very few problems. Well... except for that one time in the 9th grade.

In the 8th grade, Maelynne got a boyfriend. He was exactly 1 year younger (they share the same birthday). This opened a new chapter in our parenting experience. Uncharted waters. Her boyfriend, a handsome young ginger, was soft spoken and polite. But he was a PK... and you know what they about “Preacher’s Kids.”

About a year into their relationship... it happened! I really don’t recall exactly how we found out... but we found out! He kissed her! That ginger KISSED my firstborn daughter! This was a travesty! We had to nip this kind of behavior in the bud! We set up a meeting with his parents, who was our pastor and his wife, to get to the bottom of this crisis in character.

We all met at the church... just for added affect. We wanted to make sure that God was in attendance

also, to add his displeasure and righteous indignation. We laid it on thick and told them about all of the horrible things that kissing could lead to... like dancing and rock music! (JK...JK 😂)

I do remember that my opening salvo included the line, “Look... you are barely teenagers and the chances are about zero that you two will ever get married some day.”

Spoiler alert... they actually DID get married seven years later.

Maelynne graduated from Grinnell High School in the year 2000. She enrolled at Faith Baptist Bible College in Ankeny, Iowa for the fall semester and we began to prepare for her move to campus.

I cannot tell you how hard this was for me. I mean, yeah... you have a level of excitement for your child as they take this major step in life and begin to experience a measure of independence and adulthood. But the reality of it all hit me on the day we moved her into her dorm. I spent the day hauling boxes, while continually swallowing hard in my misguided attempt to dissolve the lump in my throat.

My firstborn was officially out of the house. Even though she’d be home for holidays and summers, I knew that it would never be the same. And it wasn’t. Our household dynamic changed for good.

As we repeated this process with the rest of our kids... it was hard, but not nearly as difficult as it was with the first. That’s not a reflection on any of the kids, it’s just more difficult to break the seal of control on the firstborn.

I comforted myself with the thought that this is the way it works. This is how it is supposed to be. You pour your life into your child. You teach them biblical values. You discipline; you correct; you praise; you love. And then you let them fly on their own.

Maelynne graduated college in May of 2004 and married Erik, the ginger PK, about a week later. A match made in heaven.

After years of struggle with infertility, Maelynne finally conceived after in vitro fertilization. She birthed twins in June of 2011... Cade and Brinley. She was meant to be a mother.

Everyone has a role to play in their respective families. When it comes to Maelynne and her four siblings, she is absolutely indispensable. She is the go-to for the siblings. She is the de facto captain of the kids. She’s the trouble shooter, the problem solver, the peace maker, the objective one, the arbitrator, the eternal optimist and the soft and snuggly comforter.

It sounds as if I have described the model child that grew up to be the model adult. It sounds that way because that is the reality of it.

I love you, Mae Mae. Thanks for being you.