On Friday, March 18th, 2011, the world welcomed my niece Solangel Isabela Morales. I don’t think I have ever seen my sister Almarie so happy before. It was a dream come true! Congrats sis! I know you will be the greatest mommy

Wow time sure comes by quick, I remember this day like it was yesterday, Mindy was six months pregnant. Hard to believe the kids are already a month old.

Daddy's Little Girl!!

Mommy's Little Boy!!

My oh my, it seems like they have grown so much in a week. I wish they can stay babies forever:(

On Thursday, January 28 my day began as a typical work day. Routine as usual, same old day at the cafeteria. But I really had this deep feeling about the afternoon. Mindy had an appointment with Dr. Frank to check on her pregnancy. They feared that she had the symptoms of  preeclampsia, a decease that only happens to women during pregnancy. When I got home that afternoon I had such a strong feeling that I told Mindy ” make sure that you bring your bag with”, she said ” you think I’ll need it today?”. I said ” well, if the doctor wants to keep you there, he will not let you go home”. And of course  I grabbed my camera just in case. So Mindy, her mother and I headed to the hospital.

We are finally sitting in Dr. Franks office waiting for the results. He steps into the room and tells us that the results came back negative and that Mindy was going home. That’s when one of the nurses comes in and tells the Dr. that Mindy’s Protein levels where way to high and her blood pressure was higher than normal. He quickly took back his decision to to send her home and decided to do a few more test for Preeclampsia. The results came back positive. Mindy and I looked at each other and realized what the evening had in store for us. Boy did I become nervous! They send us to a room to in the labor area of the hospital. Doctors kept coming in during the evening to give us information. They scheduled a Caesarean for 8 pm. The waiting was nerve wreaking. I called all of my immediate family members to tell the good news. They all came to wait for the moment and to give us support.

Then the moment came. The doctors came in the room and got us all prepared with gowns, hairnets and surgical mask. They rolled Mindy in the surgery room and told me to wait in a separate room until they gave Mindy anesthesia and got everything set up. Waiting in that room for them to get me seemed like time slowed down. My breathing was heavy and my heart was beating faster than ever before. In my mind I played a recap of my short little life and how it was about to change forever. I was so worried about Mindy hoping that she was calm. Then it happened, I heard the footsteps from one of the nurses and she came to me and told me to join my wife. The surgery was about to begin. Now, I’m no rookie at witnessing birth. I have photographed two births before, but never the birth of my own children. Wow! It was weird walking in and seeing all the doctors and nurses hovering over Mindy. They sat me next to her. I held her hand, kissed her on the forehead and told her how much I loved her. One of the nurses was standing next to me and I told her ” please let me know when I cam start taking pictures!”. We waited a little bit and then she said, “Now”.  I stood up and saw one of my babies foot, boy what a moment, my camera would not stop clicking. I wanted to capture every moment of it. Then my baby boy was out. Armand Ray Morales was 5 pounds 5 ounces and was born at 8:45pm. Two minutes at 8:47pm, Tabatha Carol Morales was born at 5 pounds 3 ounces. Tears covered my eyes. I was so overwhelm by everything. The moment I saw my two babies and looked in their eyes, and their cute little hands, and their angelic cry I was instantly in love!! I went towards Mindy and told her, ” We did it babe, they are beautiful!!”

This is by far the most meaningful day of my life. Many time I wondered what the meaning of life is. Well, my search for answers is over. My children and my wife is my meaning of life. Armand and Tabatha, please know that the two of you are everything to mommy and daddy. We will never let anything bad happen to you. I might not be able to offer a life full of luxury and riches. But I will offer you something way more richer, my heart. I Love You. Thank you for being part of my lfe:)

My mother-in-law took a special trip yesterday from Tennessee to help Mindy while she recovers after birth. Along she brought along her female dog Sadie. Sadie was pregnant with puppies and was due at anytime. This morning around 4:30 in the AM Mindy and I hear a knock on our bedroom door. Mindy yells ” come in!!”, no response, a second knock, again Mindy yells, “come in!!”. My mother in law responds “you come out!!”. Mindy opens the door and I hear her mother yelling ” Look out! She has a puppy hanging from her!!”. I see Sadie running in the bedroom and jumps up to our bed right next to me. It was very shocking to discover that Sadie really did have a puppy that was attached by an umbilical cord. Oh my!! Sadie was in labor. We took her to the kitchen and made her a comfortable spot for her to welcome her children. That’s when I witnessed how beautiful animal instinct can be. She new exactly what to do. I wasn’t fortunate enough to witness Sadie giving birth to all six of her puppies but I was able to capture some images during the event and after I came home from work. The images are not very good quality because I was inside my home and I didn’t want to use the flash and disturb the puppies. So I grabbed my fastest lens, my 55mm f1.4, set the ISO to 800 and shot at 1/60th of a second and the aperture set to 1.4.  Little noise on the images but not too bad.Here some of the photographs.