[youtube qhRA7FVGQJI]
I should have put this video up right away … sorry. Anyway, the whole story may not have been heard by all yet. Jessica’s sure to retell this, so here goes. Friday, December 26th, Jessica had her nesting instinct (only she didn’t know it). We did all of our Christmas returns, mailed letters, and saw The Last Samurai (it was really good!) After eight hours out and about, we came home, at pizza and coke and watched The Princess Bride. I sat at the computer and Jessica got into bed. At 1:45 am, December 27th, Jessica’s water broke, as she lay in bed. We called the doctor and she said that if things weren’t progressing by seven a.m. then to go into the hospital. Well, ten minutes later, in the shower, Jessica started having big contractions. I was trying to call people, but they were so bad, so quickly, that we ended up leaving the house by 2:30.
We got to St Joseph Hospital’s childbirth center and they quickly saw that she was at 4 cm and we got a room. By 4 a.m. we were at 8 cm and things were getting really intense. To skip to the end, Reason Meyer Murphy was born at 5:33 a.m, was 9 lb 2 oz and was 22 inches long. Jessica only pushed through three contractions before he was out!
If you’re wondering about his name, the Puritans had a tradition of naming people after virtues. We didn’t have a girl, so we couldn’t name him Chastity (ha ha!), but Clear Thinking is a gift of God, so we went with that. Also, it is an ancestor’s name of mine. We also wanted to stick with the ongoing family tradition of having the initials R.M.M. on a boy child.
The last name of Meyer is Jessica’s step family’s name. It was a name Jessica used to sign documents. In German/Dutch is means ‘boss’, ‘lord’ or ‘overseer’ but the Hebrew word (usually spelled M-E-I-E-R) means ‘enlighten’ or ‘illumine’. Little Reason seems to look at the lights a lot (like I reportedly did as a baby), so I think it’s a good name.
Murphy means “sea warrior” (like a Marine?) in old Gaelic, and yes, it was used to mean ‘potato’ during the mass Irish immigration of 1845.
birth
