It Started With Snoring

29 – 30th of June, 2025. A Sunday-Monday that stretched longer than most people ever imagine. I want this part recorded the way it really was, because one day Arielle, Aden, Eann, and Evan might need to know it wasn’t just another day. It was the night our family rewrote an ordinary moment into something that will outlive even our wedding day.

The night before, I finished my reflection early. I remember stepping into the boys’ room. They were already deep in dreams, each lying crooked under their blankets in that messy, beautiful way only boys do. Their tiny snores drifted through the room, the soft, innocent kind they sometimes fake when they want me to believe they’re asleep. But that night, I knew it was real. I stood there longer than usual. Maybe it was father’s instinct. Maybe it was the knowing that when they woke up, they would wake up different. Older brothers to someone they hadn’t even met yet. A sister who would change who they were forever.

I stood there, thinking how these small moments slip through your fingers if you don’t hold them tight enough. Thinking how much could change before the next morning.

Then my phone buzzed. Her name lit up the screen. No panic in her voice, just a calm statement that sounded like we’d rehearsed it a thousand times. “Get ready. The water broke.”

Packing Like We’d Done It All Before

This was the fourth time. You’d think that would make me feel more prepared. But experience doesn’t erase the truth that birth always comes with its own script. It refuses to be routine.

I walked through the house with the lights dim, the boys snoring behind me. I started gathering what I could. A simple overnight bag for myself. One for her. One for you, Arielle, though in that moment you were still just the baby in my mind. It’s funny how I remember the smallest things most clearly: the zip of the bag, the sound it made in the quiet, the way I checked twice for the documents we’d need, the slippers waiting by the door.

Your mother moved through her own quiet preparation. She showered, slow and deliberate. Then she did her light make-up. Some might ask why. Why bother when you’re about to sweat through labour, when the pain will wipe everything off your face anyway? But that’s her. Even when the biggest storms come, she finds a way to remind herself she’s more than just a patient on a hospital bed. She’s a person who chooses how she faces the fight.

I packed the red dates for her. That’s one thing she always insists on. Red dates, hot water, simple as making Milo. I liked that small task. It gave my helpless hands something to hold. When you can’t control what’s coming, you cling to the small things, just to feel useful.

When we were ready, we looked at the boys one last time. Still snoring, curled close to each other like they didn’t know the ground was shifting under them. We didn’t wake them. We just closed the door quietly behind us. We stepped out into the night, the luggage rolling behind us, carrying more than clothes and dates. We carried the weight of what was about to come. And the parts of ourselves we knew would never be the same.

Routine Until It Wasn’t

We walked into Gleneagles like we had done it all before. Calm. So calm it almost felt unreal. This was supposed to be routine. The forms at the front desk. The polite nurse’s nod. The sound of wheels rolling over polished tiles. I remember thinking how strange it is to trust a place so much when the real work is happening inside your wife’s body, far beyond what any building can promise.

We settled into the labour room. We looked at each other, almost like we had done a hundred times. I told myself, we got this. I told her with my eyes, we got this. But sometimes routine fools you. Experience does not always protect you from the sting of reality.

It was the same old pattern replaying itself. The nurse refusing to check her dilation. Refusing to call the doctor too soon. Her breath started catching, that shallow, tense sound that only comes when each contraction grows sharper. I knew what was happening. She knew what was happening. But the nurse would not listen.

My mind drifted back to our last delivery. That same stubbornness. That same refusal to trust that maybe, the husband begging is not being dramatic. A part of me wanted to believe this time would be different. But it was not.

The Begging

I watched your mother grit her teeth. I could see in her eyes she wanted to scream but did not want to waste the breath. I stepped out to the nurse’s counter. I asked politely, trying to hold on to the calm I had promised myself I would keep. No use. She said wait. She said it was not time yet. She said trust the process.

I asked again, this time with more urgency. I could feel my calm slipping like water through my fingers. The anger building in my chest was not for them. It was for me. I knew I was about to break the promise I had made not to disturb the doctor too soon. I knew I could not fix it for her.

Finally, I went to the head nurse. I was not polite anymore. I was begging. “Please come and check again. Please.”

Reluctantly, she did. Her eyes widened. “Oh my goodness. It is nine centimetres.”

That moment will stay with me for the rest of my life. The frustration, the helplessness, the silent voice in my head whispering, why am I still unable to protect her from this? I picked up my phone and called the gynae directly. The promise I had made not to trouble her unless it was serious fell away because sometimes doing the right thing means breaking what you thought you would keep.

She arrived within ten minutes. Five minutes later, there you were, Arielle. A beautiful girl. Tiny, new, fierce already. Your mother held you like she had been waiting her whole life for you. She gave you her strength even when the system failed her. She gave you her everything.

And all I could do was stand there. Helpless, but present.

The Weight I Didn’t Know How To Carry

The truth is, the fight in that hospital room was only the surface. The deeper struggle was what I had been carrying for months. I always thought my job as husband and father was to control things, protect her from pain, keep everything smooth. But that night showed me so clearly that I could not. And that is what cracked me open, because you cannot fix what you do not want to face.

Arielle, your pregnancy was not easy for us. There were weeks, nearly three months, when your mother and I hardly spoke. We lived in the same house but barely touched each other’s hearts. Not because we stopped loving each other, but because I did not know how to lift the emotional weight she carried.

She told our counselor, right in front of me, “He is not strong enough to contain my emotions.” I remember how I felt. It burned like failure. My pride bristled. My defence system turned it into an attack in my head: why say that when I am doing so much? But later, with our mentors, our pastor, and people who truly loved us, I saw what she really meant.

She was not blaming me. She was speaking the truth. Containment is not about control. It is not about fixing everything. It is about creating a space big enough for someone else’s chaos to land safely. It is about staying open even when your own capacity feels too small.

The Weightlifting Metaphor

I have always used weightlifting as my own secret language for this. Maybe one day you boys will laugh at it, but I hope you remember what it really means.

I was trying to lift 30 kilos when my true capacity was only 24. That is the honest truth. And it is no different from the time we each get. We all only have 24 hours in a day. No one gets 30. When you try to pack 30 hours of striving, fixing, controlling into a day that was never designed for it, you break. You snap your back trying to lift what you never trained for.

So we did the only thing we could do: we started throwing things off the bar. Pride. Petty busyness. Work that felt so important but was stealing the energy we needed for each other. Dead weight. The pieces that did not serve the bigger purpose.

Our marriage did not heal because we got stronger overnight. It healed because we made space. We threw away the unnecessary so I could use my strength for the real weight: her fear, her worry, her anger, our trust, your little life growing between all of that.

That night in the hospital, when I stood there helpless, holding her hand, listening to her pain, I finally understood something: you do not prove your strength by lifting more than you can handle. You prove your love by throwing off what does not matter so you can hold what does.

The Mentor’s Lesson

Two days before you were born, my mentor Dato Peter shared a reminder I had heard so many times but never truly lived out. “Serve as if you are serving the Lord.” For years, I thought that meant big sacrifices, public acts, visible good works that people would see and admire. But that Monday, in the sterile quiet of the hospital, I finally learned what it really means.

You cannot bypass the people right in front of you. You cannot say you serve God while ignoring the snoring boys behind that bedroom door. You cannot claim to protect your wife while leaving her alone with fear and frustration you refuse to help carry. Servant leadership begins where no one is clapping for you. It begins in the ordinary hours when there is nothing you can fix and no easy solution you can buy.

That night, I served wholeheartedly. 22 hours of restlessness, boredom, helplessness. But my presence was all I had left to give. And maybe that was exactly what mattered most.

The Finger Heart

After you arrived, Arielle, I moved your mother to the confinement center. I did all the small things. The red dates, the bags, her favourite snacks. Fed your brother, washed the dishes, picked up the crumbs they always seem to leave behind. Ordinary things that, in that moment, felt almost sacred.

Before I left to go back to her, I stood at the door of her room. She looked at me, tired but calm, and lifted her hand in that small gesture. A finger heart. It was so quiet but it said everything. “You stayed. You showed up. You did it.” That tiny sign will live in my mind longer than our wedding photos ever will.

The Brothers’ New Roles

On the drive back home, Aden, Eann, and Evan sat strapped in the backseat, eyes wide open in the dark. I told you, “You are no longer just my sons. You are now brothers to Arielle.” I asked, “Do you love your meimei?” Your answers made me laugh softly and wish I could bottle that sound forever.

“She is cute.”

“She has hair.”

And my favourite one, “Because we decided to love her.”

That last one is the whole story. Love is a decision. Before that night, Arielle was only a name on paper, an idea growing in your mother’s womb. Now she is yours because you chose her. Just like your mother chose the pain of bringing her into the world. Just like I chose to stay in that room, helpless but there, when every part of me wanted to run.

Aden’s Grown Man Moment

Aden, my eldest, when we got home I showed you those old birthday videos. You used to hug your brothers so tightly you would not let them go. I asked you, “Why don’t you play with them like that anymore?”

You looked at me and said, “Time has changed. I am a grown man now.”

It stung and made me smile at the same time. Because you are right. Time changes us. Friends pull us away. New worlds distract us. Your circle gets bigger and your arms grow shorter.

But one thing must never change: we love each other not because we are cute or perfect. We love each other because we decide to.

I asked you, “When I lose my patience with you, do I stop loving you?” You knew the answer. Because deep down you know love is not a reward for being good. It is a promise that stays when nothing else does.

The Reverse That Redefines It All

So here it is. The one line I want you to hold close when life pulls you in every direction. The opposite of servant leadership is not neglect. It is distraction. It is doing a thousand things right while the one that truly matters sits empty.

Anyone can pay the bills. Anyone can stand at an altar and say vows with a proud smile. But the real test comes in the hours when you have nothing left to give, when you feel helpless, when you want to walk away. That is when staying means everything. That is when you lead, not with power, but with presence.

When the Wedding Photos Fade

One day, our wedding album will gather dust on some shelf. The suits, the flowers, the scripted promises — all of it will fade in memory. But these twenty-two hours will live on. Your mother will remember. I will remember. And I hope you will remember too.

Your mother matters more than my restless mind ever did.

You boys, and now Arielle, matter more than my comfort ever could.

Love is not found in the ceremony. Love is found in the choice to stay awake when the world is asleep, to hold a hand when the pain is too loud to fix, to carry what you can, and to stand steady when you cannot carry any more.

Your Final Legacy Note

So to you, Aden, Eann, Evan, and Arielle, and to anyone who carries our name long after I am gone, remember this:

You only have 24kg to lift. You only have 24 hours to give.

Do not break yourself trying to lift 30. Do not drown your life in distractions that look noble but leave your people empty. Throw away what does not matter. Hold what does. And stay.

That is how you build a love that outlives the wedding day. That is how you build a legacy that outlives you.