Noe Valley Voice December-January 2001
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More Mouths to Feed:
Megan Gloria Mullins

As she approaches her first birthday, Megan Gloria Mullins is full of spunk and energy. But Kelly and Eddie Mullins will tell you that their daughter's dramatic birth and precarious early days resembled a roller-coaster ride.

When Megan missed her due date by 13 days, Kelly underwent an induced labor. After 11 hours of normal labor, heart rates for Mom and Baby began dropping and a cesarean section was planned. Eddie suited up in scrubs and joined the medical team in the operating room at Kaiser Medical Center.

"Up to that point, everything was fine," says Kelly. But when heart rates continued to decline, "all of a sudden there was all this commotion," and emergency surgery was initiated stat.

"The worst part was when the doctor asked the anesthesiologist how long before the pain medications kicked in," Eddie recounts. "She said, 'Five minutes.' And the doctor said, 'We don't have five minutes, we have to go in right now.'"

"They kicked Eddie out of the room and knocked me out in minutes," Kelly says. "I was crying and saying, 'What's going on?' and they just put the gas mask on me and said, 'Inhale! Inhale deep!'"

Happily, Baby arrived safe and sound at 4:09 a.m., on Dec. 7, 2000. She weighed a healthy 7 pounds, 2 ounces. For Kelly, the birth experience was "my first time in the hospital, my first child, and my first surgery."

Then, when Megan was 5 weeks old, she developed a condition called pyloric stenosis. "She started vomiting really bad, and it wouldn't stop," Kelly says. "We were in the emergency room four nights in a row."

Megan underwent surgery to correct the condition. "She's been fine ever since," says Dad. "I told Kelly, 'This kid's put us through more highs and lows in six weeks than I've been through in my whole life.'"

Megan has light brown hair and brown eyes. Her middle name, Gloria, is after Kelly's grandmother, Gloria Carlomagno. Even before she was born, Megan showed signs of being a night owl.

"We always watch the late news and then watch Letterman," Eddie explains. "And almost every night during the last couple of months [of pregnancy], we'd be lying there and the baby'd start kicking. Eleven o'clock was when she'd come awake. So now we put her down for bed at 8 or 9 o'clock, and it's basically her nap time, because at 11 p.m. she's ready to go." "She looks at you and kicks her legs like she's going to run a marathon," says Kelly.

Being a social kind of gal, Megan accompanies her parents "everywhere," says Mom. "She's been a lot of fun. We bring her to restaurants. We brought her to a party two weeks after she was born."

"We figure that if she can stay up until one in the morning, she's probably going to be a party person," Eddie quips. "She'll put everybody else to sleep."

Eddie, 35, is a native Noe Valleyan, and attended St. Philip School on Elizabeth Street. His parents, Edward and Linda Mullins, have operated a real estate business, Mullins & Co., on Diamond Street since 1976. High school sweethearts, Eddie and Kelly were married in 1995. They lived on Union Street and then Alemany Street, before moving to their current home on 25th Street in April of 2000. Eddie now works as a general contractor. Kelly, 31, works two days a week as a bookkeeper for a law firm.

When Mom is at work, Megan enjoys being doted on by her grandmothers. Eddie's mom, Linda Mullins, and Kelly's mother, Sandy Silva, take turns babysitting for their granddaughter. But, jokes Dad, "We're waiting for her to get mobile enough so that she can put a tool pouch on and come to work with me."

When it comes to R&R, Megan likes to head up to Clear Lake to hobnob with her cousins. She tasted her first bite of ice cream at the Lake County Fair on Labor Day weekend, and enjoyed a stroller's-eye view of the petting zoo there. Though still not big enough to hop on the carnival rides, she enjoyed "all the bells and whistles and lights," says Mom.

Baby's been known to make plenty of noise on her own. "She's pretty loud," says Kelly. "She's happy, she's just very vocal. Every time we go to the doctor's office, you know how they pull that roll of paper to make it clean for the next person? She likes the crinkly sound. The first visit she kicked for like 20 minutes straight. It was hilarious. She was kicking nonstop until the doctor came in."

Blackjack, the family's Labrador retriever, has become Megan's best friend, says Eddie. "He'll sit next to her when she's got a cookie in her hand, just drooling that she'll drop it. Or she'll drop it and look over at him and watch him grab it." Megan seems to have a sixth sense about Blackjack's whereabouts, says Dad. "One night I was changing her diaper, and all of a sudden I saw her head snap to the side. And a second later, the dog came walking in. I didn't hear anything, but she heard his collar jingle just that little bit."

Before Kelly became a mother, friends and family regaled her with tales of the joys of parenting. "Now I know what everyone was talking about," she says. "The excitement you feel inside -- that it's something you two created -- it's amazing."

Becoming a father, says Eddie, "has solidified my family values and my love for Kelly. And recently, with the problems we're having right now in the world, I look forward to coming home and seeing the baby. I just really look forward to coming home and holding her."

The Voice plans to launch a scintillating new family column in 2002. However,

WE STILL NEED BABIES!

Please send your announcement and a phone number to the Noe Valley Voice Baby Dept., 1021 Sanchez St., San Francisco, CA 94114. Or you can e-mail jaxvoice@aol.com.