Welcome Baby

Our new little guy, Calvin Michael Ray Cox was born Tuesday at 1:31 am. We were excited when the clock struck midnight and we realized his birthday would be 11-10-09. It goes quite nicely with Katie's birthday 01-02-03. At 2 1/2 weeks early, he weighed 7 lbs. 4 oz. and was 20 1/2 inches long.

The 1/2 hour before his birth and the 1/2 hour after were a stressful time to say the least. It was very fast. I went from 5 cm. dilated to completely delivered in 1 hour and 15 min. My blood pressure was too high. His heart rate was unstable. I had to labor in one position on one side which meant that the epidural settled in one leg and didn't actually block pain (but that one leg was nice and numb for HOURS). I had a placental abruption which is very dangerous for mom and baby. And the cord was tightly wrapped around his neck twice (which probably caused the abruption and the heart rate problems). He swallowed quite a bit of blood from the abruption.

The NICU team was ready and waiting when he was born and after working on getting him stabilized they took him away. We LOVE NICU teams!! His cord was also immediately taken away for labs so they could determine how much oxygen he had missed out on and if he was going to be okay. Although it was nerve wracking, I felt surprisingly peaceful while Jer was in the NICU with Calvin and I waited for the test results.

We were so, so, so blessed in the way things turned out. If my epidural would have numbed me the way I wanted I wouldn't have been to get him out so fast. After he was born the doctor told us several times that it was good that everything happened so fast and that if labor had taken any longer Calvin would not have survived. He also said that my health (and possibly my life) was spared because it was so fast. We are so grateful my water didn't break at home, but in the hospital were they were monitoring him and could take steps to save his life. We are so grateful we were in Provo so we didn't have to be separated from him the way were from Ashton and that there were experts there ready to help him. We saw the hand of the Lord so many times in that critical, scary hour. And now that we know how things turned out we can see His guiding hand in so many other things. Why don't we trust Him more? We feel so blessed and grateful that Calvin and I are both here and alive and pretty darn healthy.

Because of H1N1 and the hospital rules about visitors, the kids were just able to meet Calvin for the first time today. To say he is adored is truly an understatement. Katie, Ashton and Kiersten spent quite a bit of time arguing over whose turn it was to hold him. Matthew said, "I just can't stop looking at him." And so far Will has only shown affection for his new little brother (crossing fingers). Katie read story after story to him and did all of her homework with baby on her lap today.

We feel so grateful for our sweet little ones (especially the littlest) and family and wonderful friends who have already offered so much support. We are so blessed!