Welcome, Aida Rose Brooks
On Monday, September 22, 2025, our second child, Aida Rose Brooks, made her entrance into the world. Both Aida and my wife, Kaylee, are home now and in good health.
Her arrival was unlike anything we could have anticipated. When our first daughter, Annie, was born, labor followed a more traditional and extended course. With Aida, however, everything changed in an instant. In the span of just 20 minutes, Kaylee’s contractions shifted from every 15 minutes to every two.
Kaylee looked at me with a steady urgency and said it was time to go, now. I helped her into the car, shouted a quick explanation to the subcontractor working on our casita addition, and sped toward the freeway. But we didn’t make it far. A mile and a half down the road, the intensity peaked. The transition phase of labor had arrived, and it became clear: Aida wasn’t waiting for the hospital.
She was going to be born right there.
The scene was surreal: a parking lot in a commercial office park, across the street from Circle K, caddy-corner to Bank of America, with the smell of fried potatoes drifting over from Burger King. My disbelief gave way to instinct. I opened Kaylee’s door, dropped to my knee on the gritty asphalt, and tried to focus even as I could see traffic building at the stoplight through the car’s front doors.
Kaylee took a sharp breath, pushed, and Aida’s crown appeared. Two more contractions later, she was in my arms. I watched as she took her first little breath, her umbilical cord still pulsing life into her, her tiny head gradually turning pink with vitality. Kaylee’s relief was immediate; mine came a moment later, realizing we’d just delivered our daughter, on display for morning rush hour traffic.
We wrapped Aida against Kaylee’s chest, covered them with a blanket, and I got back behind the wheel. All those years of coaching Annie to keep the car spotless seemed ironic as I smeared birth fluids across the steering wheel and touchscreen while trying to call the hospital.
Banner University Medical Center received us with calm efficiency. Midwives, nurses, and assistants surrounded us as I handed the valet my car key, half-smiling at his comment about my terrible parking job. An hour later, when the adrenaline finally began to wear off, I felt heavy with exhaustion but deeply content. Watching Aida squirm on the warming table as the nurses weighed her, took her footprints, and swaddled her—it all felt like a miracle.
Now we’re home. Together.
Lessons in Expectation and Adaptation
Looking back, I’m proud of how we navigated an experience so radically different from what we had planned. Kaylee and I had set clear expectations for how Aida’s birth would unfold. Instead, we were asked to improvise. Oddly enough, our years of raising sheep gave us a small measure of preparedness. Having assisted in several lamb births, we’d had extra “reps” that made the unfamiliar slightly less daunting. And just the day before, we had attended a birthing class—an experience that bonded us and reinforced our trust in one another.
This story, though deeply personal, echoes themes I see every day in my work with clients. Financial planning and investment management unfold within a complex, adaptive system. We build strategies and set expectations based on available frameworks, but conditions can change. Success depends on maintaining the flexibility to adapt, sometimes with as much urgency as Kaylee and I had in that parking lot.
Gratitude
I want to extend my special thanks to each of you, the clients I serve. Your support and understanding as I temporarily reduce my work commitments these few weeks has given me space to adjust to life with Aida. Your words of kindness and encouragement have meant more than I can say.
This has been one of the most intense and meaningful weeks of my life. Thank you for being part of it in your own way. I look forward to connecting with you soon.
