Introducing Kyle Thomas Morrone
By Paul Morrone CFP®, CPA/PFS, MSA
I’ve never been the type to embrace ‘the tears of joy’ concept, which is quite a shock given the fact that my farther wears his heart on his sleeve. Even Jill is quick to remind me that I’m probably the only groom that didn’t cry when he saw his bride for the first time in that white dress (even though she was certainly worthy of it). Shortly after celebrating our third wedding anniversary, however, Jill finally saw tears fall from my eyes as we welcomed our first child, Kyle Thomas Morrone, into the world on Thursday, September 6th, shortly after 12pm. Many of you have told me that this would be a life changing moment, one I would never forget and something I couldn’t even begin to comprehend until it had happened. Even though I’d heard it a million times, I still wasn’t ready for the sheer excitement, emotion and overwhelming happiness that came with seeing a healthy baby in his mother’s arms for the first time.
Around 11:30pm on September 5th (our scheduled due date), Jill thought she was going into labor. By 1:30am on September 6th, we were both certain that was the case. A cocktail of adrenaline, nerves, excitement and anxiety kept us going and around 3:30am we were in the car on the way to the hospital, our last time leaving the house as a couple. By 5:30am, we had made it through triage, got admitted and Jill had received her epidural. Then came the waiting game. Seconds seemed like hours as the clock ticked by, and the sound of the baby’s heartbeat on the monitor could have driven even a non-sleep deprived person insane. Luckily, the anesthesia had been working and Jill was feeling no pain even through hours of strong contractions.
Around 11:40am the doctor came in and gave us the green light to start pushing, and we were blessed with an amazing nurse, Lori, who couldn’t have been a better coach for Jill through those last crucial moments. I’ll spare you the details of what happened over the next 20 minutes or so, but for anyone that has witnessed childbirth in person, I’m sure you’ll agree that this is a life changing experience in its own right. A huge sigh of relief came he popped out and we heard him cry for the first time, at 12:05pm. He calmed down quickly and began to feed, which gave us all a chance to take a deep breath and process what had just happened. It was our first moment as a family, one I certainly will not forget.
I got my own stint in the limelight when I got to cut the umbilical cord. My two seconds of glory ended quickly, and the attention turned back to Jill and the yet-to-be-named baby boy in her arms. After the doctor completed her after-birth care and the room had been cleaned, we had a refreshing moment of solitude to take a deep breath. Only one thing was left to do - decide on a name. As many of you know, we had not disclosed even our short-list of names to anyone, and now it was time to make the final call. After looking at him, we both unanimously agreed that Kyle Thomas was the only choice. It was love at first sight.
Our families would have probably preferred that we informed them of the exciting news a bit more rapidly than we had. Up until birth, we had only been sending need-to-know updates and wanted to enjoy our first moments together as family, not attached to our cell phones. An hour and a half after birth, we finally made the call to our families who were waiting with bated breath. You could feel everyone’s excitement over the phone as we gave them the good news and told them his name. The immediate follow up question, of course, was ‘when can we come to meet him?!’
A barrage of family and friends came to visit us in the hours that followed, each one more eager than the next to hold Kyle and get their first glimpse of their new grandchild or nephew. Jill’s siblings came in from NYC that night, and my sister, Kelly and her husband, Dave, came up from Stamford in the midst of a crazy thunderstorm just to spend a few precious moments with us that first day. As the adrenaline rush started to wear off, we realized that it had been over 40 hours since each of us had slept. Exhausted, we passed out only to wake up two hours later to a hungry baby.
I want to thank everyone that has reached out to us over the past couple of days; your love and support means to the world to us all. Kyle is lucky to be born into a network of friends and family that cares about him so much. As the first grandchild on either side of our family, I assume he will also be a bit spoiled, too! Thank you all again and I look forward to sharing all of my proud (and not-so-proud) parent moments with you in the future.
Love,
Paul, Jill & Kyle
