NEW YORK NEWSDAY, January 12, 2002

Baby Brings Tears of Joy

By SUMANTHI REDDY

Her middle name is Faith, because they never gave up hope they would bring a child into the world.

Not after Dena Smagala didn't conceive after one year of trying to get pregnant. Not after she had a miscarriage when she was six weeks pregnant. And not after being on fertility drugs for more than one year.

At 4:35 a.m. on Wednesday Alexa Faith Smagala entered the world, all of 21 inches and 7 pounds and 7 ounces.

After seven hours in labor, Dena Smagala could do nothing but cry. Tears shed for the joy of finally having the baby she long sought. Tears shed because she did it alone. Her husband, Stanley Steven Smagala Jr., 36, a city firefighter, was killed in Sept. 11's terrorist attack on the World Trade Center.

Now, she is one of dozens of Sept. 11 widows bringing fatherless children into the world.

"It was very emotional," Smagala, 31, of Holbrook said from her hospital bed at Good Samaritan Hospital Medical Center in West Islip.

Nine months ago theirs was a life right out of a Norman Rockwell painting. She was a fourth-grade teacher in Seaford; he, a firefighter for Engine Co. 226 in Brooklyn.

They met at his fire academy graduation in April 1996 and were married two years later. "There were 400 firefighters there and he was one who stood out," she said.

They both wanted to have children soon. He was one of seven children; she, one of five.

After years of trying to get pregnant, news arrived the day after Mother's Day. Dena's doctor called her at school to tell her the good news. She waited to tell Stanley in person, buying baby bibs and "I Love Daddy" shirts and setting an extra place at the dinner table. "He was thrilled," she recalled. "He cried."

They were cautious at first, telling few people. It wasn't until June 19, at their three-year anniversary dinner, that they started planning.

"He talked about it all the time," said Jack Halaby, a firefighter in Engine Co. 226. "He constantly kept us up to date with doctor reports."

Stanley never missed a doctor's appointment, reveling in every detail - sonogram pictures, the baby's heartbeat, the baby's movements.

"I had a doctor's appointment Sept. 13," Dena said. "He switched his schedule to work Sept. 11 and not miss it."

After Sept. 11, Dena stopped eating, stopped sleeping, but was surrounded by friends and family who forced her to drink lots of liquids and escorted her to biweekly doctor's appointments.

She stuck to all the details she and Stanley had talked about. Alexa Faith if it was a girl. Nicholas Steven for a boy. Teddy bears decorating the nursery room. Baby Looney Tunes for the baby's playroom.

"The fact that I was carrying the baby is what really kept me going," Dena said.

Raising their baby without him won't be easy. She'll feel his absence with every "first" she can't share with him, all those things he looked forward to. Giving her baths. Feeding her. Videotaping her first steps.

"I would have nothing but memories," she said, looking down at the baby. "Now, I have a life."