A few weeks ago, I published an article titled “We’re Having a Baby Today.”
I wrote about how strange it felt to have the birth of our second child scheduled on the calendar. I wrote about how we had decided, once again, not to find out whether we were having a boy or a girl. And I wrote about how our family of three was about to become a family of four.
Three weeks later, I’m ecstatic to announce…
IT’S A BOY!
On Friday, October 2, 2026, Kristin and I welcomed our son, Caden Lesh Biederstadt, into the world. Our second greatest surprise has arrived. And just like that, Kaia became a big sister.
Running up to the big day, and as I wrote in anticipation, it felt strange. We knew when to arrive. The bags were packed. The plan was in place. There was no frantic race to the hospital or wondering whether this was finally the moment.
But I can tell you this: there is nothing routine about watching your child enter the world.
Leading up to the big moment, it felt oddly calm. Other than Kristin getting anxious because we were running 10 minutes behind our scheduled 8:30 a.m. arrival, everything felt like it was playing out exactly as it should. Like Christmas morning as a kid, the anticipation and excitement of the unknown was obvious. Don’t get me wrong, there was an unspoken nervous energy and obvious butterflies, but everything felt strangely comfortable. Upon arriving, we were greeted by our amazing nurses (Torrey and Lindsay) and escorted to our surgery prep room. We got cleaned up, prepped, and sat for an hour or two joking and catching up with our doula, Robin Ross, who I am extremely proud to call a friend and honorary member of the family after helping us welcome both of our children to the world.
Then after the IV’s and initial check in’s, suddenly, it was time.
They wheeled Kristin out of the room in her bed headed for the O.R., and I was escorted to the recovery room to wait. In what seemed like the quickest (and longest) twenty minutes of my life…I was summoned.
As I walked into the operating room, I was shocked by how big the room was and how many people were there. It seemed like a dozen professionals, placed in segregated areas of the room, assigned to teams, each with a role, all singularly focused on keeping Kristin and our baby safe. It was quite a scene, and an experience that I won’t ever forget. The introductions alone were overwhelming, and before I could acclimate and settle into the movie-esque scene I found myself in…everyone seemed ready to get the party started. It was impressive. Granted, I was nervous, excited, and going through all the crazy emotions that come along with the birth of a child, but for them, this was just another Friday at the office. For us, it was one of the most important days of our lives.
And then, two songs into the playlist they had us put together while waiting, and before I could even catch my bearings, there he was.
Our son.
For months, we had talked about “the baby.” We had no idea who this little person would be. And now he had a face, a name, and an entire family (and large medical team) ready to welcome him to the world, love and care for him.
It was surreal. As the medical team was attending to Kristin, I was escorted to a corner of this massive room to hang out with the baby team. My only job was to comfort Caden as the nurses did their thing.
Then in a few short minutes, to walk him over to Kristin and help them get properly introduced in the midst of surgery. It was wild. In what seemed like a total of 20 minutes flat, my son was here and I was being taken to a recovery room to hang out with him by myself. It seemed like forever, and I couldn’t have imagined it, but Caden and I got to spend that first hour of his life together, while the medical team took care of Kristin. Three weeks later, as I reflect on that morning and recovery room, I remember bouncing my son to the Bob Marley and Jack Johnson playlist Kristin crafted for what seemed like forever. Alone in that room, staring at this perfect tiny human, a feeling that everything was right in the world and exactly as it should be washed over me. I felt relief, pride, and an unexplainable feeling of joy and comfort as I slipped right back into newborn mode. (Thank god I had done this before, because if I had never been responsible for a newborn and tiny human, that would have been terrifying.)
I remember thinking about how different this was from Kaia’s entrance into the world. All went to plan, exactly as it should, and after Kaia, we felt like we were prepared for Round 2 and there wasn’t anything we couldn’t handle. If you read my article from years ago summarizing the first six weeks of parenting, you know Kaia arrived nine days early, on Kristin’s birthday, after a full night and morning of labor. It was eventful, from nurses leaping onto the delivery table in a split second and single bound, a soulder dystocia, detached placenta, and my daughter being pulled into this world, with one raised fist in the air and absolutely no regard for my affinity to carefully plan and prepare for these sorts of things. Caden, on the other hand, arrived the moment we expected him to, as planned, and exactly as we hoped for and envisioned.
Their personalities, at least early on, seem just as different.
Kaia had neurological colic. In fact, what our pediatrician described as the most severe case she had ever seen. I’ll never forget her exact words: “Are you guys okay?… If I had to put up with this every day, I never would have had four children.”
There were stretches when she cried for what felt like the entire day in those early months. Kaia didn’t get much sleep, startled and jolted herself awake, cried for hours on end, would lock her eyes shut and pump her arms and legs uncontrollably with nothing we could do to help her beyond singing, playing music, and taking turns pacing around our entire house bouncing to try to comfort her. We didn’t know any better and loved every exhausting and post-traumatic second of those first few months. On the other hand, those first few days in the hospital with Caden felt like we were getting to experience what it was like to take care of a mini Buddha in baby form, with a hint of an old man and Benjamin Button face. I give the little man a lot of credit; even after getting repeatedly pricked, sliced, and incessantly tortured in his first four days at the hospital, Caden was this remarkably calm, content little guy from the very beginning. He ate non-stop, slept like a champ, looked around the room with those curious eyes, seemingly content and extremely curious about the world around him. That is, as long as he was fed and warm (he gets very hangry quite often and extremely upset when you dare change him and make him cold).
Naturally, I’m three weeks in, and I know we have no clue what the next few months will look like. I’m not naïve enough to think we’ll ever have this whole two-kid thing figured out. We’re still navigating recovery, feedings every two hours, the newborn sleep schedule, constant diapers, and the reality that our very affectionate new big sister came down with a nasty cold within two weeks of the big man’s arrival. Nothing quite says “welcome home, newborn baby,” like filling prescriptions for steroids and trying to contain a toddler for breathing treatments. All while trying to protect “her baby” from catching the toddler plague, as she wants nothing more than to be near him and care for his every need.
Regardless of trying (and failing) to get a 2-year-old to maintain her “social distancing,” watching Kaia with Caden these first few weeks has been one of my greatest joys. Seeing her get so excited to check in on him, gently touch him (thank god), the concern, and immediate innate level of care and affection only a toddler is capable of, is something I will never forget or get tired of.
Before Caden was born, I wrote that I wanted to spend the day being a husband and a dad, not a business owner, attorney, and overachiever that can’t seem to take a break. And I meant it. In those first moments, holding this tiny human and looking at Kristin, I felt overwhelmingly and unexplainably grateful. Now, after spending a few weeks present at home with my wife and kids, I’ve quickly come to realize that I have to take on a newfound identity and sense of responsibility in my quickly changing role as a father and husband.
I also wrote that there is only so much we can control, no matter how carefully we plan.
As it turns out, Caden reminded us of that lesson sooner than expected.
The first twenty-four hours after he was born, Kristin had a really difficult time recovering. At the same time, Caden was having trouble regulating his blood sugar and couldn’t seem to maintain the levels his doctors needed to see. There were never ending heel pricks, then came the slicer, encouraging results that made us feel like we were out of the woods, followed by disappointing tests every time we hit that third and final milestone that needed to be passed. There were a lot of medical tests, terms that I had never heard or had learned about when Kaia was born, and a lot of nervous watching and waiting. By Saturday evening, October 3, after thinking we were in the clear, Caden needed to be moved to the neonatal intensive care unit — the NICU — for monitoring and to be placed on a feeding tube.
That was not the first weekend I had pictured for our newborn son.
Thankfully, Caden is doing fantastic, and his stint in the NICU was brief. But I spent that Saturday night into Sunday morning beside him, hooked up to the starship enterprise, wires coming through his nose, in a place unlike anything I had ever seen. It was impressive, futuristic, frightening, enlightening, and humbling all at once.
I want to share that story separately, because it deserves more than a quick paragraph here. It also led to a moment involving my own book, Life Happens. Are You Ready?, that I don’t think I’ll ever forget.
For today, though, I just want to celebrate our baby boy.
Welcome to the world, Caden Lesh Biederstadt. You have definitely lived up to your name thus far and are loved more than you could ever imagine.
And Kaia — watching you become a big sister and seeing this unfold through your eyes has made this whole experience that much sweeter.
We are incredibly grateful to the doctors, nurses, and staff at Hinsdale Hospital who cared for Kristin and Caden and helped us begin this next chapter as a family of four. Their entire staff was beyond fantastic, but my sincerest thanks and gratitude go to Dr. Sara Mehdi (our amazing doctor), Robin Ross (the greatest doula one could have), the entire medical team at West Suburban Women’s Health, Dr. Sophia Rodriguez, Dr. Lindsey Malone, our wonderful nurses who were with us leading up to, throughout, and for hours after Caden was born, Torrey and Lindsay. The entire team at Hinsdale Hospital in the maternity ward, Mother Baby, and NICU: May (Peggy), Evelyn, Madelyn, Emily, Michelle, Georgia, Abby, Rosie (manager), Sue (lactation specialist), Bonnie (hospital masseuse), Dr. Ayuste and Dr. Boyle (our doctors), Dr. Gabriel (potentially the coolest and scariest Anesthesiologist who ever lived…”That is the surgeons’ problem, not mine”), and the greatest baby photographer I could’ve imagined, Stephen from Bella Baby Photography (who now goes by Steve… “Mr. Caden, you are my muse.”)
