Becoming a Father

Never have I felt this level of gratitude and love.

I sometimes look at my life and ask myself how it is possible to be so blessed. I feel so blessed that sometimes I feel guilty that the whole world cannot experience the level of happiness I feel.

My daughter, Aeyla Gluckstein Mecca, came into the world on 1/23/26 at 4:34am. Labor was 4 hours. My wife, having thoroughly prepared with daily yoga, pelvic floor exercises, hypnobabies, raspberry tea, readings, acupuncture and much much more, handled labor beautifully. The transition happened so fast she started having the urge to push before we even got in the car.

Her dad drove to the birth center, 40m away but we made it in 25 because halfway there I felt the birth canal and Aeyla's head was RIGHT there.... I looked at Tonya, she looked at me, and I calmly said, "Anton, punch it through that red light".

Aeyla was here in 3 pushes once we arrived. 8lbs 9oz, 99th percentile head size. She was huge.

The moment I saw her, I froze for a split second. Terror shot through me, "I don't know who this person is," I thought.

After about .5 seconds, I was flooded with the urge to take care of her. She was so little and helpless. I needed to keep her safe.

Then the love hit. You don't really understand what this type of love feels like until you experience it. In the span of about 10 minutes, I had gone from just meeting this new human, to knowing I would both DIE and KILL to protect her.

The next 10 days were the most love filled, healing experience of my life. I cried every day. We would hold her and listen to Aeyla's birth song Playlist, starting with "Little Garden" by Ayla Nerrero. As soon as it would start, I would begin sobbing in a state of joy, love, and something else - perhaps a catharsis knowing that I would protect and care for this child in a way that would break all generational trauma. Writing that even brings tears to my eyes. What an absolute honor, duty & privilege.

This love does not diminish with time. It simply integrates into your soul. It makes what would be hard into a piece of cake. It makes sleepless nights a thing of beauty. It allows you to grow emotionally into the caring parent that your child needs. It is your guide as a parent, the central mast.

I shudder to think of the misery of parents that ignore or avoid this central pillar, due to fear, anger, resentment, or other types of blockages.

Back before Tonya got pregnant, I sometimes would play devil's advocate about parenting strategies. "Is there any chance it would be better to withhold love in some way to encourage the child to become stronger?"

Now, I think back to that thought and laugh. It seems beyond obvious to me now - a child's spiritual food is the parents' love. Depriving a child of that love at ANY point is starvation. The starvation affects their spirit rather than their physical body, so they don't show obvious or immediate medical symptoms. However, the symptoms will be there, manifesting differently in every person.

My daughter will be loved her whole life, as long as Tonya & I live. There will never be a day that goes by in which I do not feel love for my daughter, I know that to be a fact.

Aeyla is now almost 4 months. She has grown so much. Tonya and I will simply sit around and watch her do the funniest things. She gets these obsessions which usually last for about a month or two. After being born, her obsession was being bounced at night. I would hold her in the perfect position while bouncing on a yoga ball for 4 hours straight. Then her obsession was books. We read her about 100 books a minimum of 10x each. We kept trying to find more and more until our house was full of them.

Currently, her obsession is watching toys hang down from a hanging baby structure. One of them, some sort of black & white long snake, is her favorite. She's obsessed with it and will freak out slapping it with her hands and trying to grab it. She also loves yoga music playlists and will relax more when music is playing.

She makes these high pitched squealing noises when she gets really excited that are so unbelievably cute. Her smiles light up the whole room. Sometimes she busts out a MASSIVE smile out of nowhere. I'll like yawn or something and she will find it to be the funniest thing of all time.

Anyways, fatherhood is amazing.