Two November 13 birthdays, part 2: Greetings, Larry Aqlunaq Ahmaogak!

Please allow me to introduce Larry Charles Aqlunaq Ahmaogak of Wainwright. I almost didn't make it over to see him on this, his birthday of origin, because I had first gone to the party which you will see on November 13 birthday #1. Thanks to these shingles, I got to feeling so weak, rotten, and drained over there that when the party ended, all I wanted to do was go home.

But a friend is a friend and family is family and this includes the family that adopts when you are in your 40's. So I decided to drop by, say "hi" to Jason and Iqaluk, give them my best wishes for the upcoming birth of their baby and then go home.

I called Jason, to see where I might find them. "We are here at ANMC with our son Larry," Jason answered in a tired but proud voice, "born this morning at 7:59 AM; seven pounds, 14.4 oz.; 20 inches."

So off I went to the Alaska Native Medical Center.

Jason Ahmaogak is the kind of guy who can go out on the flat tundra in whiteout conditions in the darkness of winter at 50 below, be just fine and never get lost. He can venture into the maze of broken, pressure ridge riddled ice and know where he is at all times. Even without GPS, he can boat out into the Chukchi in the fog and come home okay.

But Jason got lost in the hospital. He left Iqaluk and Larry - whether Larry was born yet or not I am not sure - to run an errand and then he could not find his way back. He wandered down this hall and that hall and all the halls just looked like halls.

Finally though, he made it back. That is good, because he has to teach this boy how to survive in the Arctic.

Larry Aqlunaq - this name comes to him from his grandfather, Jason's dad, who passed away very recently. This means a great deal in the Iñupiat way of life.

Notice the symbol on Jason's sweatshirt. I have a sweatshirt just like this. That symbol stands for Iceberg 14, the whaling crew that Jason's aapa, his grandfather, Benjamin Ahamaogak Sr, started up many decades ago. When Ben was still alive, I followed him and his crew to do a little photo essay and that was when they adopted me.

So today, I gave myself a new assignment: to follow Larry Aqlunaq off and on from now through the first whale hunt in which he takes on a role of high responsibility in the boat.

I recognize that I have given myself a huge challenge and to be quite honest, I realize that the odds are high that I will not be able to complete it. I will be a genuinely old man when that event happens. I might well be dead. I might be incapacitated.

But I just might make to that point, in decent health.

So that is my goal: to make it that point in decent health and follow Larry Aqlunaq into the boat, onto the sea, and to the bowhead whale that will come his way.

Because he is family - that's why.

Iqaluk is a fine Eskimo dancer in the Iñupiaq style. Larry Aqlunaq's older sisters are fine dancers. Small though they still be, they bring down the house whenever they perform. I suspect Larry will also be a fine dancer. I must photograph him dancing as well.

Larry Charles Aqlunaq Ahmaogak.

Note: I decided to run November 13 birthday part 2 before Part 1, because my son Rex is very familiar to the people who know him and to regular readers, too.

Not very many people have seen Larry yet, so I am going to post this first. I may post Rex's birthday tonight or I may wait until tomorrow. To be quite honest, I don't feel up to it right now - but I might in a little while.

Two November 13 birthdays, part 1. 

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Jobe's final moments as the "baby of the family"; a lynx gives a most significant gift to my new grandson

Here he is, Jobe, in his final day as the baby of the family. For one-and-a-half years he has occupied this spot. Throughout this time, he has known nothing but total adoration from virtually every adult that he has ever met. At home and elsewhere, as the cutest and youngest person in the group, he has been the center of attention and that attention has all been good attention.

Jobe thinks that is just how life is - something that takes at the center of affection, attention and adoration.

While I am confident that much affection, attention and adoration will continue to come his way, an event is about to take place that will soon remove him as the central focus point of adoration, affection and attention. Another cute person will soon occupy that cherished but briefly held spot.

At the very moment this picture was taken, his mother was in the hospital in labor and had been for over seven hours. I had gone into town to help Margie take care of Jobe and his brother until his new sibling could be born. Margie and I have just picked the two of them up from daycare. We will walk home with them, as only a few hundred yards separate their daycare center from their house.

Before we reach the house, we stop at the park, where Kalib and his grandma played on the teeter totter. Very recently, Kalib and his mother were walking down the path in the space between the first picture and this one, when Kalib stopped to point out that he had just spotted what he called a "kitty." 

He wanted to pet the kitty.

Lavina looked and was shocked to see a lynx standing about 20 feet away. The lynx hissed at them and then dashed into the trees.

Anchorage is our big city. This is the kind of city Anchorage is.

Melanie had joined us. She watched as Kalib climbed a rope ladder.

Jobe slid down the slide.

At the house, Rex and Kalib played with toy trains as we all waited for the call that would tell us it was time to head to the hospital.

Eventually, my effervescent, ever pleasant, good-natured little grandson grew tired and irritable. It was time for bed. Margie gave him a bath and, with help from Lisa, I trundled him into his jammies. He resisted all the way.

Margie took him into the bed where he usually sleeps with his parents. She would spend the night with him there, beneath the photo of one of his parents' wedding kisses.

Rex left with his girlfriend Courtney and her mother Janet. I returned to the living room to wait for that call with Lisa, Melanie and Charlie. Martigny was there, too, coming toward me from Lisa, who adores all cats.

As we visited at the kitchen table, Melanie and Charlie pondered a grapefruit. We all hoped for a girl. In theory, if this baby were not a girl, then this would end our chance at getting a granddaughter and a niece from Lavina and Jacob as they plan to stop at three.

After a few hours, it began to appear that the big event would not happen for awhile.

Everybody went home, leaving Margie and me alone with Kalib and Jobe.

I slept on the couch, but I didn't sleep good. I was still awake at 1:30. After I finally fell asleep, I woke often, with strange dreams and visions playing in my head. The details have gone soft, but the feelings remain.

I was a bit worried. Lavina had gone into the hospital at about 10:00 AM, after her water broke. At about 10:00 PM, her contractions had suddenly stopped. A womb without water is a womb that cannot long be lived in. This baby needed to get born.

At 5:30, I awoke for what I knew was for good.

I went into the master bedroom and laid down on the bed with the sleeping Margie and the sleeping Jobe. Soon, I got a text from Lavina. We then spent some time texting back and forth. As she always is, she was being brave and tough and pleasant, but she did confide that she did not know why it was happening this way, and said she was almost at a breaking point.

If the baby did not get out of the womb within 24 hours of the water break, then she would likely be facing a C-section.

Still, she inquired with concern about Margie, who had spent a couple of days not feeling well, and she gave me instructions on getting the boys to daycare in time for breakfast once they awoke. After we had accomplished that, she wanted us to come and visit.

After we dropped the boys off, Margie and I headed over. The delivery room had been darkened. Quiet - except for the sound of the baby's heartbeat, broadcast and amplified through the monitor, mixed with the sounds of pain and hard breathing that Lavina would make every time a contraction would hit - yes, she was having contractions again - about two minutes apart.

The doctor moved the C-section time from 10:00 AM to 12:00 noon - but if that baby was not out or coming out at noon, then it would be a C-section delivery. Despite the contractions, Lavina did not feel that vital urge to push.

The day before, I had dropped my Canon 5D Mark II off at the repair shop to get the sensor cleaned before I left for New York. I had only my Canon 1Ds MIII with only one lens, a wide angle. It is the most expensive camera that I ever bought but it is also a big, bulky tank-like thing and it clicks loudly.

It does not do nearly as well in low light as the 5D. I decided not to worry about pictures until the baby was born, because I did not want to disrupt the room with loud, clicking, shutter noises. So I sat down and made myself quiet, but I did take this frame. This is Lavina's good friend Natalie, Maid of Honor at her wedding. Nat has assited Lavina with the births of all her baby's.

Nat knows how to massage her aches and pains, how to help keep her spirits up. She is quiet and unobtrusive almost to the point of invisibility, but she is there and Lavina knows it.

Jacob, too. He is there. Lavina knows it.

Soon, the clock passed 11:30. No baby. Still no urge to push. The C-section began to appear inevitable.

I believe it was already a few minutes past 11:40 when Lavina got a sudden and painful urge to push - and she let us know it. The attendant nurse had stepped out for a minute. Lavina's doctor was on another floor. The nurse was summoned., appeared almost instantly, then summoned other nurses and the doctor. In just a moment, the other nurses had joined her. The doctor headed for the elevator, but something apparently happened with that elevator that slowed her descent.

The nurses moved with amazing rapidity and intensity, moving apparatus here, there, adjusting the birth light. They knew this baby was coming - fast. They could not wait for the elevator to bring the doctor. They had to act - now.

I kept my vision discretely turned away from the spot of birth. Suddenly, I heard a tiny but wonderfully strong voice cry out in pain and shock.

Then I was crying; suddenly, I was laughing; laughing and crying. Suddenly, there was a baby in front of me; crying out loud, the blood of new life upon it. My tears blurred my vision, my laughter unsteadied my hand; I took the picture, anyway.

Who is this nurse that delivered my third grandson into this world, as his doctor was trapped elsewhere by an elevator?

I don't recall seeing her before this event happened, nor do I recall seeing her after my new grandson was safely delivered and cleaned up.

Whoever you are, nurse, I thank you. With all my heart and soul, I thank you.

You have my eternal gratitude - and the gratitude of everyone in this family.

Grandson # 3 was born at 11:47 AM - after his mom had been in labor for approximately 26 hours.

And here I am, still complaining about how exhausted I am.

He was a couple of weeks early and weighed five pounds, 13 ounces and was 18.5 inches long.

Although we did not know, we had all been hoping for a girl. Jacob and Lavina had a number of girl's names lined up, but were short on boy's names.

It would be awhile before grandson #3 would get his name.

Mother, father and baby.

Soon, Rex, who had been working on the construction of another part of Providence Hospital, joined us.

Everyone, including me, took turns holding our new grandson. Here he is, with his grandma. She just met him, yet, already, she loves him as dearly as she loves anyone who ever lived.

He has a name now:

Lynxton Dischinn'd Hess.

Lynxton - in honor of the lynx who surprised his mother shortly before he was born.

Dischinn'd - the name of the White Mountain Apache clan that his grandmother, father and all his aunts and uncles belong too.

It is the way of both the Apache and Navajo to go with their mom's clan and tribe, so Lynxton will be of the Lo'kah, and will be enrolled in the great Navajo Nation - home of a major branch of the Dene, whose numbers reach into northern Canada and Interior Alaska.

Apaches are also of the larger Dene, but they call themselves, "N'dee."

Navajo, Apache, Athabascan - these are all names placed upon them by other people; just as "Eskimo" was placed upon the Iñupiat and their other Inuit relatives.

Soon, a medical technician came in to do a blood draw. Lavina could not bear to see the flesh of her son get poked, nor to hear the sound of him crying out in pain, so she plugged her ears, closed her eyes and pulled the sheet over her face.

Little Lynxton didn't cry much at all - a short little blast with the first poke, none that I remember with the subsequent pokes.

Jacob feels the tiny body of his new son...

...then checks out his tiny hand...

...and then his tiny feet.

Dad is pleased.

Margie and I then returned to Jacob and Lavina's house at somewhere between 2:00 and 3:00 PM, exhausted, ready to nap.

Margie lay down to sleep on the short arm of the "L" shaped couch. Above her hung a picture that I had taken of Kalib on the first day of his life, alongside the Apache cradleboard his Aunt LeeAnn had made for him. Lynxton will be carried in a Navajo cradleboard, made by his Aunt Cori.

You will see pictures of it in the future.

I lay down on the long arm, but, exhaused though I was, I could not go to sleep.

So I got up, went outside, sat in the car and listened to the radio - first, Terri Gross on Fresh Air, followed by All Things Considered.

I wish I could fall asleep and stay asleep the way Margie can. I think my life would be a lot easier then. I think I would accomplish more and do better work. I might even be able to exercise some business sense. Perhaps we would not be in the continual jam that we always are... if only I knew how to sleep.

To be quite honest with you, given this continual blur of exhaustion that I live in, I don't know how I accomplish anything at all.

At 4:20 PM, I headed toward the camera shop to pick up the 5D. On the way back, I stopped at daycare to get Kalib and Jobe.

I saw Jobe first, in the playground on the other side of the fence. He saw me and came running to the fence.

His life had just undergone a change of gigantic significance, but he had no idea of it.

Yet, when I look at this picture, I almost think that, somehow, even if he did not know, he had a sense of it.

He had been living with a pregnant mother for almost nine months. He probably picked up more than we might think.

Little people are smart.

Jobe is very smart.

I picked up Margie and the four of us went to the hospital, where Lavina had been moved from the delivery room on the first floor to a room on the fourth.

Jobe and Kalib got their first look at their new brother.

Lavina then handed the not-yet named Lynxton to his Aunt Melanie, and took both of her other babies into her arms.

Then each got some alone time with their mom.

Lisa was there, too.She had held him before we arrived, but I did not get to witness it.

After Lisa got up, Kalib came over. At first, he refused to look at or further acknowledge his new brother.

Then his dad coaxed him to come and give a touch. He seemed to like it.

Jobe, however, had taken a look and it seemed that was enough for him. He was brought over, but no one could convince him to look at or acknowledge his little brother.

When his dad brought his brother close, Jobe tried to push him away. I am not worried, though. It is hard to give up a position so sweet as baby of the family. Kalib did not want to yield that position to Jobe, but he did. And Kalib loves Jobe.

He does experience some natural sibling rivalry and jealousy, but nothing that strikes me as serious.

I am confident Jobe will love his younger brother.

Still, I do worry a bit about his position as the middle brother.

His Uncle Caleb was the middle brother in our family, between Jacob and Rex, and often found it a tough place to be.

Here he is, our third grandson, named for the lynx that suprised his mother: Lynxton Dischinn'd Hess.

I don't know what time I drove home. Seven PM? Approaching 8:00?

I was exhausted, wonderfully happy and yet painfully sad. Wonderfully happy for the obvious reason; painfully sad because I am headed to New York City tomorrow. I have been greatly looking forward to that trip and still am, but suddenly it has become the event that is going to prevent me from seeing my new grandson again until sometime in early October - and then only briefly because I must go north almost immediately afterward.

I do not know how long I will be gone then - perhaps a week, perhaps a month.

My little grandson will grow rapidly in my absence. He will change significantly - and I will miss it.

This knowledge left me feeling down - made me wonder if maybe it is time for me to forsake my wild, wandering, ways, settle down and devote myself to my grandchildren.

Many people my age have retired, many will retire within just a few years of the age I now am.

I ran into one of my retired friends at Walmart the other day. He had worked fulltime for what over the years has been my biggest client. He is three years older than me. He looked happy and fit, relaxed; he told me how great it was to be retired, how he could now afford to run his own bed and breakfast business and soon planned to start a furniture shop with his sons. He was really enjoying his grandchildren.

It didn't really matter if his businesses made money; he had enough to live on.

But I can't retire. For one, I have been a lousy businessman and have no means to retire. Furthermore, I have never wanted to reitre. I have too much work left to do.

Yet, a huge amount of that work could be done right here, at my house, in Wasilla, less than an hour's drive from my grandchildren.

But that ain't gonna to happen. I can't afford to stay home. And at my core, as placid as I may appear on the surface, I churn in perpetual restlessness and wanderlust.

One day, I will quit wandering. On that day, or perhaps the next, I hope someone pitches me into the creamatorium and then casts my ash to the wind.

But maybe I am wrong in this long-held notion.

I missed so much of my children's growing up. Maybe I should be there for my grandchildren.

Maybe... maybe... nah... can't happen... well, maybe... but if so, how?

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I leave for New York City early tomorrow (Friday) morning, so I will not post again prior to Saturday, possibly even later.

One shot from today: Baby boy Jobe Atene Hess - more pictures will follow

I am exhausted and must go to bed as soon as I can, so I decided to post just one image from today's shoot. I chose this one for the simple reason that it is the first scene that I shot on the second compact flash card that I exposed today and that card is the first that I am downloading because it was in my camera when I came home and plugged it in - and I do like the image.

At the end of that card, there are some shots of Kalib meeting his new brother for the first time and I had thought that I would use one of those. But CF cards download extremely slowly out of my Canon 1Ds Mark 2 into my computer and Lightroom, and it will be awhile yet before that picture appears.

I do not have it in me to wait right now. Except for a cat nap after the birth, I have been up now for over 40 hours and I am fatigued, mentally and physically, even as I am overjoyed that our newest grandson has emerged from the womb to make himself known.

In addition to this card that is currently downloading, there is the first card that I filled, which is twice the size of this one and will take twice as long to download - and there is another card from my pocket camera.

The pocket camera card will download fast, but it has to wait its turn and it is the third in line.

So I am going to bed.

Sometime after I get up, I will download the remaining two cards, do somewhat of an edit and make a more complete post on today's event.

Jobe weighed in at seven pounds, ten ounces - a full pound more than did Kalib - and came out 19 inches long. The woman giving Lavina a neck message is her good friend, Natalie.

Jobe is greatly loved and we are glad to have him here.

More later.

Margie returns carrying a buckskin cradle board; Melanie's birthday celebration

So here I am, in the car, driving to airport "arrivals" to pick up Margie. See the smiling Yup'ik face on the vertical stabilizer of the Alaska Airlines jet on the other side of the new terminal building? That is Flight 91, just landed, coming in from Seattle where she changed planes after leaving Phoenix at 7:00 AM. Margie is still on board, waiting for them to open the door to the terminal so she can get out and come to me.

Soon, she is sitting beside me in the car, looking at a card that was sent by my niece Khena and husband Vivek. It has several pictures of their baby, Ada Laksmhi, half-a-year old now, highly intelligent, a full head of thick, black hair and, as you can see in Margie's expression, extremely cute.

She lives in Minneapolis. I hope we get to meet her, soon.

As for Uriah, he is home and has some healing to do, but is on the way to recovery.

I ask Margie if she is hungry, and she is. She has eaten only a bagel since flying out of Phoenix more than seven hours earlier. "Where do you want to go?" I ask. We are headed in the general direction of Melanie's work, because it is her birthday and we want to wish her a happy one. Plus, the engineering firm that she works for was recently bought out by a bigger corporation and she just moved into a new office, which we have not yet seen.

Margie thought about the question for about five minutes. "Taco Bell," she said.

So here we are at Taco Bell by Dimond Center. There is an empty parking space close to the door and these ravens have gathered in it. I make like I am going to park there and Margie scolds me, just like I knew she would. "Don't you dare!" she says. "Look at all those people you will disturb!"

So I parked elsewhere and several ravens came to join us. We went inside. I was not very hungry, so I ordered a cheese quesadilla and a small Pepsi.

Margie ordered a chicken soft taco and a small Diet Pepsi.

The ravens took whatever they could get.

We then went shopping, to buy her some gifts. Melanie loves dark chocolate, so her mother had brought her a box of Godiva chocolates that she had bought in Arizona. We went into Pier 1, which actually has some pretty neat stuff. Margie tends to think practical, so she found some nice, orange, couch pillows that seemed to match the decor of Melanie's living room.

I seldom think practical when buying gifts. I found a decorative pair of birds on a stand. They appeared to be dancing with each other.

We bought both the pillow and the birds.

Now we needed to get them wrapped, but to box and gift-wrap them seemed quite impractical, at this time. So we went to another store, where Margie decided to buy some fancy gift bags to put them. She thought she would be very quick, so I dropped her off and circled the parking lot.

As I came back, I noticed this bear, standing under this word, in front of Sportsman's Warehouse.

Margie did not find any gift bags, but she did find some little white bowls shaped like hearts. She thought Bear Meech and Diamond, Melanie's Anchorage cats, would enjoy them, so she bought them.

Next, we stopped at Melanie's new place of work. We wished her a happy birthday and examined the premises. Melanie told us about a nearby coffee shop that had the name, "cats" in it. She said the coffee was good there. We went looking for it, but never found it. We wound up at a nearby Kaladi Brothers instead.

The coffee was superb. 

From there, we did some grocery shopping for Melanie's birthday dinner and then we headed over to Jacob, Lavina and Kalib's. Margie was eager to see Kalib, but he was not there. His dad had picked him up from daycare and they had gone off to do a little shopping themselves.

Lavina was home alone, as she had been all day. She was almost desperate to see people. Margie then gave her the Apache cradle board that her sister, LeeAnn, had made for the new baby-in-waiting. That's white buckskin that you see on the cradle board. The part that Lavina is touching and admiring is made from cholla cactus.

During the time that Margie and LeeAnn had been snowbound and then even afterward, LeeAnn had worked hard and long to finish the cradle board. She completed it the night before Margie left.

She also made the one that Kalib spent his babyhood sleeping in.

All of our own children were packed in such cradles - made by Margie's mom, Rose. If you should ever get a chance to see the February, 1980, issue of National Geographic, I have a three-part story and photo spread on the White Mountain Apache Tribe in there and it includes a picture of Rex in his cradle board, as his grandmother works on others.

A few years back, the Governor of Arizona declared Rose to be an Arizona State Living Treasure for her skill in making cradle boards. 

I think LeeAnn is a treasure, too.

Even though I missed this trip, we are all planning to go down for a Sunrise Dance in June, so you will get to meet them all then.

As for the baby who will occupy this cradle board she... well, could be a he, but I have just been feeling that it is she, but I could be completely wrong... is definitely getting ready to be born.

Lavina is experiencing intense contractions again. Of course, this has been going on now for a couple of weeks - intense contractions, followed by light contractions. She visited her doctor today and our new grandchild is right there at the door, ready to exit.

As soon as Lavina's contractions get to be ten minutes apart, she is supposed to go in.

This is the longest labor I have ever known of.

Jacob and Kalib finally arrive. Margie is thrilled to finally see her grandchild again. Kalib reacted the way I used to react when my grandmother's would hug me.

Yes, I still remember.

Soon, everybody had arrived - except for Caleb, who stayed in Wasilla to sleep before heading out to his all-night work shift.

Can you guess whose feet these are?

We gather in the kitchen to get our avocado cucumber sandwiches and our baked potatoes and corn chips.

See the fact at the far right? The one that is just barely into the picture frame? That face is Lisa's face, just as the feet in the previous frame are Lisa's feet.

The arm at the right belongs to Bryce, Lisa's boyfriend.

The others, of course, are Margie, Melanie and Rex.

Kalib rips his sandwich apart and devours it. I suppose one day soon, he will have to start learning some table manners. I don't think the lessons will please him.

As he always does at anybody's birthday party, Kalib came dashing over to help blow out the candles. He puffed so hard that he nearly blew Melanie away.

She quickly recovered to blow out the remaining candles.

Next, she opened her gifts. I will not list them all, but I will note that this one is from Charlie and he did the raven painting himself. You can see how he docorated the package.

Afterward, Kalib rolled a big ball down the stairs several times. 

Is my beautiful, sweet, baby girl, who I love so dearly, so sweetly, who I cherish more than I cherish the sun that shines each day, the earth that spins, my own life, the little girl who, when she was small, would automatically appear in my lap whenever I sat down, really 29 now?

She really is.

How beautiful she is, from the first moment onward.

I wrote up an extensive journal entry about her birth, which started in excitement, turned frightening, and ended wonderfully. I was going to transcribe it into this post and I actually began to, but then, just as happens every time I read it, I began to weep. Twenty-nine years has passed, but I sat here at my computer and I cried, as they say, "like a baby."

I had to pull back.

Kalib's first birthday, part 1: flashback one year to his actual birth day

In just 45 minutes, guests should begin to arrive to help us celebrate Kalib's first birthday. I had not yet begun this blog when he was born at 3:19 AM, December 26, 2008, so I am going to flashback one year to that day. This way, when I post the pictures from the party, readers will be able to put them in context.

Shortly after the birth, the scene was calm, peaceful, joyous and serene as Kalib bathed in the love of his mom and dad. Of course, it did not start out that way.

It began in pain, along with a disruption of our Christmas plans. Jacob was working on a roast, which he was marinating and doing various things to enhance the flavor. As usual, we were cooking turkeys out here and pies and all of that kind of thing. The baby was not due for another week.

Then in the afternoon, we got a call that Lavina's water had broke and they were headed to the hospital. Jake had to put his roast aside. 

The emergence was not imminent, so the rest of us ate our dinner and exchanged our gifts. The word was we could confidently wait until after we got a good night's sleep to come in, because the baby was not coming fast.

Still, we could not wait. We climbed into the car and drove to Providence Hospital in Anchorage. We entered the delivery room a bit after midnight and this is what we found.

The stuffed St. Bernard is the original Muzzy, the one Jake gave Lavina years before, when they were in no position to have one of the eating, breathing, slobbering, bounding, loving, pooping kind.

Jake holds Lavina's hand. In this way, he helps her bear the pain that we who sire the babies can never know. Once, Jake caused his mother that same kind of pain. When it reached its worse, she told me that she had changed her mind.

"Take me home," she said. "I changed my mind. I don't want to do this anymore. Take me home right now." She was not joking. She meant it. 

I did not take her home. She got very angry with me. Margie doesn't often get angry, but she did then.

Lavina bore her pain quietly, hugging stuffed Muzzy, holding Jacob's hand as her good friend Natalee massaged her back, moaning and crying out lightly now and then, but never did she scream. Margie and Melanie watched the baby's heart beat on the monitor, as it sped up, slowed down, then sped up again.

Obviously, the baby was having a remarkable experience.

 Natalie Massages Lavina as Jake comforts her from the other side. Shortly after this, a nurse came in and told us that the baby was almost a good ten to hours away from being born and that we should go get some sleep and then come back refreshed for the big moment.

I was leery about leaving, as I did not want to be gone when baby appeared, but I was extremely tired and so was Margie.

At that time, Jacob and Lavina lived in an apartment less than two miles from the hospital. So we drove over there, to bunk with the flesh and blood Muzzy and the calico cat, Martigny.

We had barely exchanged greetings with the cat and dog and settled down to sleep on two different couches when Margie's cell phone rang. The process had speeded up. The baby was about to be born. 

We rushed over and headed for the delivery room. The door was closed. And suddenly a sound penetrated the door - the sound of a baby's first cry. I wept. 

Natalee came out as the nurses cleaned baby and Mom up. She smiles as she listens to the cry of the newborn.

Soon we were in the room with Mom, Dad, and newborn son. Mom and Dad had waited until the moment of birth to learn his sex. For a boy, they had already picked the name, Kalib. In full: Kalib Lokaa'Dine Hess, in honor of his Navajo clan. In both Apache Navajo cultures, the children belong to the clan of their mother, so this worked out just fine.

Have you ever heard a sound more beautiful than the cry of a healthy, newborn baby?

I haven't.

A baby's cry is the most beautiful sound in the world.

Not even Mozart ever created a sound more beautiful than this.

Mom, Dad, Kalib and gramma.

Having missed Christmas dinner, Lavina now eats a corn chip.

Dad kisses Kalib.

Mom kisses Kalib.

Dad and Kalib.

Kalib and Uncle Caleb. Caleb soon proved himself to the very definition of doting uncle.

Newborn Kalib.

Newborn Kalib with new mittens.

Kalib Lokaa' Dine Hess - our first grandson.

Well, Kalib's first birthday party has now been over for about two hours. Yes, I was unable to finish this entry before it began - with no small thanks to the glitches and vagaries of Squarespace - but now I have.

Soon, I will blog Kalib birthday party #1.

Click on any image to see a larger version.