In 2025 we started a new job, moved to San Francisco, and had our third kid. Any one of these would have made life exciting. What came in the last three months became the most difficult days of our lives.
Just before turning two weeks old, Tomas had his first hospital stay. He'd end up going four times, staying over six weeks total. For most of that time we had no idea what was wrong, he simply couldn't breathe. It wasn't until his last stay that we got a diagnosis: congenital nasal pyriform aperture stenosis, a condition so rare only one in twenty-five thousand kids have it. Thankfully, Tomas is now old enough to mouth breathe, working around his tiny nasal passages.
During those six weeks I nearly broke. My wife was with Tomas at the hospital. My paternity leave was ending. And I had two other little ones at home who needed meals, school pickups, soccer, normalcy. I was being crushed.
Moving to San Francisco turned out to be the miracle I needed. The old JuiceBox office was in SOMA, right by the kids' park in South Park. We'd bring the kids by often, and that's how we met a group of parents who recommended a school for our daughter. We toured it, loved it, and enrolled her. That one recommendation changed our lives, because those parents are the ones who saved us.
When I was desperate, a parent from her class called and asked two questions: What do you need, and how can we help?
Normally I'd have said "thank you, but we'll manage." I loathe relying on others. But I was truly desperate, so for the first time in my adult life, I opened up. I told her everything, no time to cook, no one to pick up the kids, hadn't even seen my newborn because no one could watch the other two.
In ten minutes she sent me a spreadsheet with the next seven days of my life neatly arranged. A meal train. Carpooling. Playdates so I could do laundry. A tremendous weight lifted. Now I could see how we'd survive the week.
I look back now and it's hard to believe these people were in our lives. My wife and I are at best good about sending Christmas cards, how did we end up with friends willing to feed, watch, and play with our kids when we couldn't?
I think the answer is less about us and more about San Francisco itself. This is a place for the ambitious and self-motivated, where the hungry feast on opportunity in this cauldron of optimism. But those same people are also the most generous, because everyone who makes it here has sacrificed something. Time with kids, loved ones, hobbies. Skipping holiday travel to close a deal. Sticking to soon-to-expire groceries to make rent. Or simply uprooting everything to be here. Whatever the reason, San Francisco has cultivated a community of people who will do anything for a fellow traveler: builders.
We moved here for a job. What we got instead was a lesson in friendship.