Introducing Calvin: The Official Grandchild™ of "5 Kids, 1 Wife"

 

The handsome young gentleman pictured above is Calvin, my grandson. He is two days old and the first grandchild with which Terry and I have been blessed.

We are, naturally, smitten.

Little Cal made his mother Chloe (our daughter) work hard through her first labor and delivery. She went into the hospital at 8am Sunday to be induced, the result of high blood pressure readings that prompted her care team to take Calvin from the relative warmth and comfort of the womb three weeks before his official due date.

It took nearly 23 hours for Cal to make his entrance, ultimately via an unplanned C-section. Despite the best contraction-inducing drugs and techniques modern medicine could offer – along with 3 1/2 hours of exhausting, heroic, middle-of-the-night pushing on Chloe's part – the little guy simply wouldn't come out.

This was largely because of his big head, an anatomical feature I will freely admit he inherited from his maternal grandfather.

So C-section it was. He came into the world at 6:43am on Monday, measuring 21 inches in length and weighing 8 pounds, 7 ounces.

Let me say two things about his weight:

• Terry, Melanie, Jack and I were sitting around the fire pit in our backyard Sunday night taking guesses as to what Cal's birth weight would be. One person was spot on with his guess. I will not tell you who that was, except to say it was me.
  
  
• If Chloe's pregnancy had gone the full 40 weeks, using the very general rule of thumb that babies gain a half pound a week in the final days of pregnancy, he would have been pushing 10 pounds just like his uncles Jared (9 pounds, 15 ounces) and Jack (9 pounds, 13 ounces) did.

Calvin has needed a little help breathing, which is why he has spent the first few days of his life in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). This is common in babies born even as late as 37 weeks – especially boys, for whatever reason – so there was no cause for alarm.

As for Chloe, in addition to the normal fatigue of labor, she also developed an infection that resulted in a fever, AND she hemorrhaged a bit after the C-section.

Give that woman a medal. Give every women who has a baby a medal, as far as I'm concerned.

And give her husband Michael a medal for keeping her going and supporting her through the whole ordeal.

When Terry and I got to the hospital about eight hours after Cal was born, I saw this wooden disc resting on Chloe's bedside tray:

Until that moment, while we knew Chloe was having a boy, we didn't know his name. That was the one thing Chloe and Michael had kept secret from the rest of the world, which I thought was perfectly fine. It was only fitting that Mom and Dad had at least one surprise to reveal.

It took me a minute to register exactly what the information on the little wooden circle meant. Then I realized not only that our first grandchild's name would be Calvin, but also that his middle name would be Scott.

It made for an emotional moment. It was all I could do to keep from breaking down and crying right then and there. What an honor it is for your grandbaby to share your name. It's something for which I'll always be grateful to Chloe and Michael.

I have a feeling I'll be grateful for a whole lot of things as Baby Calvin grows up.