Today is President’s Day, a holiday at my job. There is a gentle, but steady rain, creating an ambient pitter-patter. I can see the branches of the backyard tree blowing in the wind through our bedroom window.

My mother-in-law is cooking up a breakfast stir-fry, filling the air with a savory smell. I slowly sip my hot cinnamon coffee. All is calm.

And then I hear the sound of baby Basil’s soft cry.

Oh yeah, that’s right, we have a son now. His cry slowly gets louder. I hear Kerong’s voice try to comfort him.

“What’s wrong, Basil? Are you hungry?”

The calm doesn’t last long… Basil erupts into a full-on wailing cry. I should probably go help Kerong…

The last blog I wrote was just one day before we went to the hospital for the birth of our son. The 6 weeks since then have been a whirlwind of amazing moments of joy and tired, sleep-deprived days.

Just before midnight on Sunday, January 4, an overdue pregnant Kerong went to the bathroom. For reasons too graphic to write about here, she yelled to me that we needed to go to the hospital. I quickly got up and dressed. I got our pre-packed hospital bag into the car and we drove off for Cottage Hospital here in Santa Barbara.

A nurse brought us to one of their birth center rooms and took some measurements. Things were in motion. We were going to have a baby boy soon. Little did we know, we would not leave the hospital for nearly a week later.

We were able to get some sleep that first night; Kerong was having contractions, but they were not too intense. Nurses periodically came to check on us. The next morning things would get more intense.

The contractions started to become more frequent and intense. Kerong wanted to try for a natural birth, meaning no pain medicine or intervention to induce birth.

The nurses continued to check her “dilation” and found that she was not progressing at a rate that would start labor. However, her contractions were very frequent and intense.

Eventually, the doctor suggested that we should try a medical method to encourage dilation. It would take up to 12 hours to see if the medical procedure worked. And the implementation could be uncomfortable. It was a tough decision, and we took a while to consider it. Ultimately, we decided to take the doctor’s advice.

The doctor and nurses were very comforting in describing the procedure and assured us that the pain would be minimal and quick. If it worked, it would be totally worth the discomfort. At this point, Kerong was already in so much pain from the contractions, that the procedure did not seem so bad.

The method certainly amplified the frequency and intensity of the contractions. The next 12 hours were spent managing contractions every 2-5 minutes. We fell into a routine that included me putting heavy pressure with my hands on Kerong’s back while the contractions came and went. The pressure seemed to help a little. But Kerong was still in a lot of pain.

We did this all through the night, trying to get a couple minutes of sleep here and there. The 12 hours was up in the morning. We were exhausted by this point. It had been about 36 hours since we came into the hospital.

In the morning of day two, the doctor came in to assess whether the procedure was successful in pushing the progress of labor. Kerong had dilated to about the halfway point. The doctor said this was a good sign and that the contractions should continue to move her along in the right direction.

We continued on with the waiting game; enduring hours of tough contractions and waiting to move into the active labor phase. The phase where I would get to yell “push!” But Kerong needed to fully dilate in order to get to that part.

Through the afternoon, Kerong’s contractions got more and more painful. A constant back pain began as well. One of the nurses suggested taking a bath. This seemed to help relieve some pain, but only for a few minutes.

Around the mid-afternoon the pain was so great that Kerong decided she would get the epidural for pain management. I was amazed she made it this long without it. She endured many hours of continuous pain. I was secretly glad she made this decision. It was hard for me to see her in such pain.

The epidural was administered, which quickly relieved much of the pain. The doctor then came in to check on Kerong’s dilation; we would expect that she would have dilated more since the last check. Unfortunately, she had not made anymore progress, despite an afternoon of frequent, very intense contractions. This was tough news.

The waiting game continued. A new set of nurses came on shift, along with Dr. Jordan, our OBGYN throughout Kerong’s pregnancy. We were glad to see her. The new nurses had some ideas of different positions to put Kerong to encourage dilation. They tried some of these methods but Kerong started to feel pain again.

After several hours into the night, the pain returned once again. I kept applying pressure but Kerong’s pain was getting unbearable.

The nurses came in to check on the baby and noticed his heart rate had dropped, which was concerning. They called in Dr. Jordan. After assessing the situation, she decided to recommend a C-Section. The baby’s heart rate dropping, combined with the stagnation in the dilation, was reason to use medical intervention to get the baby out. Dr. Jordan told us there was a couple more things they could try to still have a natural birth, but that would likely take a lot longer. And Kerong was already in so much pain and completely exhausted.

The two of us took a while to discuss. It was a hard decision. This birth experience was not at all what we had anticipated. For whatever reason, Kerong just could not dilate enough for our baby to come out. After a lot of tears and talking, we decided to go through with the C-Section. After letting Dr. Jordan know our decision, the next step was to get more pain medicine for Kerong ASAP. Her pain was excruciating at this point.

They had me put on surgery clothes so that I could be in the operating room with Kerong. After a couple minutes, Kerong had a heavy amount of medicine in her; she felt no pain. Once we were in the operating room, I began to get very anxious, but was afraid to show it. There were many nurses and doctors in the room, with machinery and devices. Everything seemed like a fast-moving dream sequence.

They got Kerong up on the operating table and had me sit at her head. They put up a curtain from her chest down so that we couldn’t see what was going on at her belly. There was a mirror above that we could look at if we wanted to see.

The surgery started and I heard Dr. Jordan’s voice give out orders to the other nurses. Kerong was conscious but completely numb and loopy. I spoke words of encouragement to her. She asked if she was dreaming several times.

A short while later, they had pulled our son out of Kerong’s stomach. One of the nurses had me stand up to look over the curtain to see Dr. Jordan pull him out. I got a look at our baby, and then a small glimpse at the operation. I got lightheaded and quickly sat back down.

Then they put our son in my arms. His eyes still closed. I greeted him, “Hi Basil.” It was a surreal moment. He was calm.

Basil Gao McKenzie was born at 1:56 AM January 7th, 2026.

The operation continued for some time to stitch Kerong’s belly back together.

Next, they moved us to another room, where they took some measurements of Basil. He was a big baby – 9 lbs 6 oz and 21 inches long. They asked for his name, to which we replied “Basil.” The nurses were interested in how we chose that name. I told them the story of how I thought of it during the Tahoe 200 mile footrace I had completed in June 2025. I would end up telling this story to several nurses in the coming days until we left the hospital.

It was at this point that intense sleepiness came over me. My mom had come into the room at this point. The nurses were still doing measurements. I had to fight my eyelids to keep them open. Kerong and I had barely slept in the last 36 hours. A few minutes here and there.

They finally brought us into a post-birth room. The action did not stop. A nurse had to go through a bunch of questions and readings; I could barely stay awake. I kept catching myself drifting into sleep. After a while, we were finally left alone. We slept for some time. Basil also slept.

We awoke a few hours later. I lost track of time at this point, unsure of what day it was or how long we had been in the hospital.

We stayed in the hospital another 3 1/2 days before finally going home. Those days were hard. Basil cried often because he was hungry, but he struggled to breastfeed, which meant he wasn’t getting enough calories. The doctor recommended we give him baby formula.

We finally went home on Sunday afternoon, a week after we had gone in. It was good to be home. Within a couple days of leaving the hospital, Kerong was able to successfully breastfeed Basil and we could stop using the formula. A big relief.

We quickly found out that Basil is a night owl. He gets progressively more fussy from dinner time until about 1 am before he can finally take a longer sleep. This makes it hard for everyone else to sleep too. After a couple weeks of crazy, sleep-deprived nights, we fell into a routine. Kerong’s mom would stay up with Basil after dinner time until about midnight. At that point, she would go to bed and I would be on Basil duty. I would rock him to sleep or give him a bottle of milk if he was hungry. And then I would leave for work a little after 6 am.

I have started to shift my running schedule to run before work. This means I am getting up around 3 AM to feed Basil and get him back to sleep by 4 AM. Then run for 45 min to 1 hr. Then shower up, eat breakfast, and get to work by 6:30 AM.

Its a tough schedule to adapt, but I’m getting used to it. Its an amazing feeling to come home from work to see my son. I usually pick him up and hold him for a while.

Basil is six weeks old now and we have already noticed some development in him. He has definitely gained some weight, likely over 10 lbs now. He is able to grab onto small things with his hands. He likes to pull on my shirt when I hold him. Occasionally he smiles, although it is hard to tell if its intentional.

It has been incredibly helpful to have Kerong’s mom living with us. She cooks nearly all of our meals, cleans, and helps with Basil. I don’t know how we would do it without her. But we will have to figure it out, as her visa is only good until mid-June.

As far as running goes, I have been able to keep my run streak. I’ve been having some slight glute/hip pain, but it is manageable.

I signed up to run the local Santa Barbara Nine Trails 35 mile race. Its a tough one with about 12,000 feet of vertical gain and descent. So I am trying to train for it. I’ve been able to get a couple 30 mile training runs on the weekends. But most of my weekday running is no more than 5 miles on the roads in the dark.

Originally, I wanted to do a couple 100-mile races this year, but with a newborn, I am unsure if this will be logistically possible. We will see.

Some music selections from the past several weeks:

Zach Bryan’s new album With Heaven on Top. Been listening to this one a lot. All the tracks are great. It starts with a great poem, “Down, Down, Stream.” I really like the track, “DeAnn’s Denim” and “Plastic Cigarette.” He also dropped an acoustic version of the whole album. Also very good.

Widespread Panic 12/31/2025 Atlanta, GA. Thanks to taper: Z-Man. Good NYE show, with Billy Strings guesting. Sweet cover of Traveling Light.

Echo and the Bunnymen Album Ocean Rain.

Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio album – Close but no Cigar. This was a new find for me. Very cool modern day jazz organ trio tracks. Very groovy, and gritty.

Railroad Earth 1/16/2026 Hartfor, CT. Thanks to taper: Chad Wilcox.

Joe Russo’s Almost Dead 1/17/2026 Port Cheser, NY. Thanks to taper: marcb. Some good Bob Weir songs, RIP. Love Throwing Stones and Playing in the Band.

Julian Lage new album Scenes from Above. Been listening to this one a lot. The song structures are so interesting. Love the track Talking Drum and Night Shade.

Doc Watson compilation album The Definitive. Been getting into Doc’s work recently. Incredible musician.

Mt. Joy’s album Hope We Have Fun. Always a fun listen.

The Bad Plus album Suspicious Activity? Hadn’t listened to this weird jazz trio in a while. Love Ethan Iverson’s piano style.

Turnpike Troubadours album The Price of Admission. Hadn’t listened to this band much before. I like the songwriting on this album. “On the Red River” and “Heaven Passing Through” are some tracks.