A new father

To add on to Emily's post :
It's 11:44 p.m. here in Cairo right now and in about 5 hours, Diaa will be on his way to America to see his new daughter. He was planning to leave on November 1, right before we leave for travel component, but the baby was planning differently and arrived 2 weeks ahead of schedule. Today was service project day so I wasn't in the office but I called Diaa around noon to talk to him about a few things and when I asked him how he was doing, his response was, "Well, there are a lot of things going on here . . . " and then he explained that Carol was in labour and we (Steve, Dave, and I) needed to have an early meeting to go over travel component details because he was going to the States a lot earlier than planned. A few hours later we all met at the villa and our meeting occurred simultaneously with Carol giving birth (as strange as that sounds). We'd talk about a few details of travel, and then Diaa would call Carol and he'd get off the phone and say something like, "the baby's head is showing!" and we'd all get excited, and then he'd say, "OK, let's keep talking about Syria." It was an almost surreal experience and when the baby finally made it out and we heard it cry on the phone, the beam on Diaa's face was amazing to see. I'm sad that Diaa couldn't have been there for the actual birth, but I'm happy that he'll be there tomorrow and it's wonderful that Diaa and Carol are now parents. The students started calling him "Poppa Diaa" as soon as they found out and as Emily said, the baby is healthy and well. Steve and I were pushing for the name "Stena" (we actually know an American girl here named "Stina") but Diaa just wasn't going for it. Momkin that can be her nickname :) You'll all be getting an "official" email soon giving an address where you can send Diaa and Carol your congratulations but for now, I was just so excited that I had to add on to Emily's post about this wonderful news.

Be blessed . . .