After my first child was born, my wife, who had never gotten sick before...

After my first child was born, my wife, who had never gotten sick before, became very ill with mastitis. She had never had an illness requiring antibiotics in her life, and suddenly she was dying from an infection.

Five rounds of antibiotics did nothing for the infection.

She almost died several times, always the same. She would start hallucinating and talking gibberish, then pass out, and her fever would spike to dangerous levels unless she got immediate medical intervention.

This went on and off for 5 months. Meanwhile, my boy had a terrible case of colic because the milk was sour from the infection. He was also hungry all the time because the infection was blocking the milk ducts. Additionally, he is the most affectionate infant I have ever witnessed, desiring to be held and “connected” to at least one of us.

In order to take care of both of them without any extended family help, I was living on coffee—something I avoided before this—not sleeping and hardly eating. It was very hard.

A few times, the idea of tossing the crying baby out the window popped into my head. Anything so that my wife and I could get some sleep.

So I reprogrammed my mind to do two things:

1. Tune out the crying. I heard it, but it didn’t have much effect anymore.

2. Have more compassion for the baby. He was suffering more than any of us. He was hungry and colicky all the time, plus he has a very strong aversion to not being in contact with us. He needed me to be calm and care for him.

I also started to take care of myself first. That meant doing what I needed to do to have the energy to care for them before I did what they needed. This is huge. I can’t care for anyone else if you break down.

My sons will not go through this. They will have helpful parents beside them to take the babies as needed, funds for domestic help, and the stability of knowing that the family is a team on their side.

One thing that helped all of us was teaching my son breathing techniques that reduced his pain from colic.

I have a method to teach babies deep breathing and a form of mediation that he picked up quickly and still uses today if he hurts himself.