Calista Pearl Fails

• Greek meaning fairest, most beautiful — to us right now, she truly is the fairest and most beautiful
• Latin meaning cup, referring to the cup containing the Christian sacrament
• "ca" meaning here in Portuguese, "lista" meaning ready and smart in Spanish
• "list" for the 30,000 names mom and dad reviewed looking for the right name for baby

Pearl

• The name of Danae's maternal grandmother who passed away in 2002
• The name of Jerry's great-great aunt; Clark Fails's aunt

Information

• Birthday: Wednesday, April 25, 2007
• Time of Birth: 2:01 am
• Birth weight: 8 lbs. 11 oz.
• Birth length: 20.5 inches

I apologize in advance for the play-by-play, but this was a VERY exciting week and I feel it is very deserving of such attention.

First this week was my preliminary examination including a defense of my dissertation proposal which was Monday morning at 10:30 am.  We felt blessed that Baby Girl Fails allowed Daddy to be present.  The preparation was stressful, but was relieved greatly by a priesthood blessing received on Sunday.  The presentation went well and although there were some good, hard questions, I passed.  HOORAY!!!  To celebrate, we went out to eat with Allison (my advisor) and fellow grad students Mona Leigh and Gene.  Monday night Danae & I went to a breastfeeding class which was, unfortunately, painfully slow-paced and lacking in substance. None the less, it at least gave us some subconscious preparation for the next day...

With the events of Monday out of the way, the biggest news of the week started on Tuesday – with the start of the birth of our first child and daughter, Calista Pearl Fails. We believed her birth was imminent since at her last doctor's visit Danae was 3-4 cm's dilated and 90% effaced; we just hoped she could wait until after Monday!  After our nighttime routine of praying together and reading and singing to baby we laid down to sleep and just as I was about to doze off, Danae said, "Jerry, my water just broke" to which I so eloquently responded, "Are you sure?".  This was about 10:50 pm.  Anyway, we made a call to the doctor and doula and started to the hospital with a brief detour to drop off promised material to a colleague (you're welcome, Gene).  We arrived at the hospital about 11:30 and Danae officially was admitted at 11:39 pm.  When Danae's water broke, she wasn't experiencing contractions, but started to feel them on the way to the hospital and they became more regular and intense as we arrived at the hospital.  Upon arriving at the hospital Danae was 6 cm dilated and soon progressed to 8 cm.  The doctor on call (Dr. Footer) was one we hadn't previously met, but he was very attentive and read Danae's labor plan out loud agreeing and commenting along the way.  Labor progressed quickly and although Danae finally decided she was ready for an epidural, the two anesthesiologists were busy and baby was already coming, so she did it amazingly without pain medication.  Baby was born at 2:01 am, Wednesday, April 25th and, as you can see above has dark hair, a cute button nose and a small chin.

We stayed at Holy Cross Hospital until Friday morning, for plenty of testing and even some resting. We are thrilled that we got to take our 'prize' home with us!

Paling in comparison to baby, but also important is that Danae finally received news of her "desk audit" at work and has been promoted from a grade 18 to grade 21.  Congrats to Danae for all of her hard work!

Love,
Jerry & Danae