It's been a really wild year, chock full of highs and lows on many fronts, along with many life-changing events. For starters, we discovered Michelle was pregnant early last year. That in itself led to many adjustments to prepare for this new and somewhat terrifying unexpected arrival into our lives. We can barely keep up with everything as is!

Over the coming months, all the tests and checkups indicated everything was progressing well. Until November, when Michelle received the terrible news that her disabled dad succumbed to a horrific act of violence in his sleep that left him in a coma, only to pass on a few days later without ever regaining consciousness. To this day, the police still don't have any real leads in the case.

This nightmare scenario would be overwhelming for anyone to endure, and frankly, had this happened to me I don't think I would have held myself together nearly as well as Michelle handled it. Even worse, the stress involved at this stage of pregnancy could be even more traumatic for both mother and infant, as much research has demonstrated the potential long-term negative effects of stressful events during these critical times.

Birth

Come January, everything still seemed more or less on track, and just after the first week of January we headed over to the hospital as Michelle's contractions became way too intense to handle. She arrived at the hospital in active labor, and everything seemed on track for a normal birth early next morning. However, at around 8 cm dilation, the doctors became increasingly worried that the baby's heart-rate was dropping along with each contraction. They tried shifting the baby around to no avail, until we were informed that the doctors would proceed with an emergency C-section just to safe. In a sudden wild flurry of activity Michelle was shuttled off to the operating room.

The whole experience still feels quite surreal, especially as neither of us actually saw our baby until much later on, well after she had already been extracted from the womb. We were later told that her umbilical cord had somehow wrapped itself around her ankles in a figure 8, and as such, the doctor was confident they made the right call.

Raising Baby

There really is no way to fully comprehend the experience of having a child without living through it. The range and depth of emotions you'll likely confront are mind-boggling. Not to mention that it feels like full-time jobs for both of us, combined! To further this notion, nothing else that needs "getting done" (such as authoring this post, even at 4am, for example!) does so without baby boss' "direct approval"... 😆 lol

I'm almost convinced that babies give off some sort of memory-wiping amnesia love pheromone, cuz just as you'll want to rip your ears off after hearing her scream for 3 hours straight, one sweet smile and she melts right back into your heart. The rest is all but forgotten, and all that remains is this amazing little person who just dropped into your life. A little person that you can't imagine ever being without.

Other Milestones

At the end of last year, my father decided it was finally time to retire his ophthalmic practice of nearly 50 Years! He definitely had a great run, and it was just time. The wonderfully heartfelt letters he received from sad, yet grateful patients he treated over the years brought tears to the eye.

Once the business affairs are wrapped up, and especially now that we have a child to consider, we'll also be looking to finally move away from New York City. Preferably to a place where the hospital bill for a healthy new born doesn't cost over $100K, or at least where we're not gonna be taxed extra even for grocery bags.

At the end of the day, all we really need is a place with nice year round weather, solid infrastructure, and access to reliable internet for our work. Some might say we'll miss the pizza, but that only means they haven't yet tried one of our signature homemade diy specials! 😜

Blockchain

While it may seem that I've been relatively inactive in blockchain land the past year, nothing could be further from the truth.

From playing a small part in helping successfully launch whaleshares.io without any ICO or pre-sale, to dealing with various bouts of drama ensuing throughout the ecosystem, it hasn't been an easy undertaking to say the least. Some placed bets the chain wouldn't last a month, and others certainly tried their best to prove them right through various FUD campaigns and the usual side-winding political machinations.

Despite all this the chain has prevailed, and is thriving well beyond even my most optimistic expectations. And as some dropped from our ranks for one reason or another, we often found ourselves taking on even more work, if only cuz "someone's gotta get it done".

Cross-Chain is "where it's at", and while some still hold this mentality that "there can be only one", we're gonna show that if anything, perhaps "the one" should be GRAPHENE!

Working together is a win-win for ALL graphene chains, whatever their "niche", because opening the door to one, opens the door to all the others! As for whaleshares.io, it was meant to be a place where you can freely share all that's important to you with your circle of friends. Everyone is welcome, from STEEM to EOS to BitShares to FaceBook to Twitter. Eventually, we'd like to bring everyone together, to SHARE what you LOVE.

Over the next few posts, I'll begin describing in greater detail the other projects that I've also been working on that have just recently been released into the wild, and will help LEAP us all forward and towards that goal...

As always, I appreciate your upvote, your follow and all your comments!