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KJ Smith and Skyh Black are thrilled to announce the birth of their first child, a beautiful baby girl named Pryde JaNea Black.
The couple welcomed their daughter into the world on October 4 at 5 p.m. Pryde arrived weighing 5 pounds, 11 ounces, and measuring 19.5 inches long.
“Every morning I wake up and think, ‘I have a little being here with me,'” KJ shared with PEOPLE. “She resembles a little angel and is incredibly precious.”
Skyh expressed his overwhelming love for their newborn. “I’m completely captivated,” the proud father revealed. “I’ll walk around for hours if that’s what she needs. My gym sessions have grown longer because I find myself watching the videos her mom sends me. She’s absolutely perfect.”
The joyous occasion of their daughter’s birth followed a challenging 48-hour labor that didn’t quite go as planned.
According to Skyh, the home birth they had prepared for quickly turned stressful. “I don’t think our midwife was equipped with how she handled my wife’s birth,” says Skyh. “There were certain things that were done that I personally as a husband and a father don’t feel that had my wife’s best interest at heart.”
KJ described the day as one of the hardest of her life. “I was so dead set on having a natural birth, and I just knew it was going to work for me. It worked for so many people and I was like painfully optimistic.”
The Fatal Affair actress said that even though she had envisioned a calm water birth, something in her told her it was time to act.
“I was in so much pain. I was in so much agony. And like I said, things had not gone [as planned], and it’s just a mother’s intuition. I was like, ‘Something’s not right with my baby,’ and I just knew that. And so I was like, ‘Someone give me my phone!’ And knew who to call.”
That person was Tyler Perry, who KJ described as both her boss and a close friend. Despite being out of the country filming, Perry answered her call immediately.
“His first question was, ‘What’s wrong?,’ [and] his next question was, ‘Where is Skyh?’ ” KJ recalls. “I just hand Skyh the phone, and all I know is in the next minute. My whole family … is scrambling.”
With Perry’s help, the couple made it to Northside Hospital Atlanta, where they were escorted to a private room. Doctors quickly discovered that Pryde’s heart rate had dropped to dangerously low levels. KJ received an epidural and underwent an emergency C-section.
Both KJ and Skyh credit Perry for stepping in at the right time. “I’ll be forever indebted to him,” Skyh said.
“I feel as a man, I’ll be forever indebted to not just the boss, but the mentor and the close family friend that Tyler has become because I feel he saved my wife and my baby’s life,” he says. “He jumped into action, … and he made it possible.”
KJ echoed her husband’s gratitude. “I’m a type A person, so I plan everything, you know what I mean? But I was so dead set on a certain outcome, and I just feel so blessed every day because I could have lost my life and I could have lost my baby’s life,” she says.