A new gift to the world

In this corner, weighing in at 6 pounds 10 ounces and measuring 19 inches in length, is Conner James Hylton!

After about 13 hours in the hospital, Baby H. as he as been come to known was born at 3:37 p.m. Nov. 3. Christina handled everything well -- it was a complete natural birth. There were no major complications, although the pushing phase took longer than expected because Conner was initially facing the wrong way. Christina can offer you those details later, but everything worked out in the end.

Conner was very alert when he came out and only cried for about 10 seconds. He seemed very observant of the world around him already. He was very wide-eyed and was responding to our voices very well. As many of you know all we've been saying is that we wanted a healthy baby -- a boy or girl didn't matter -- and we have that healthy baby.

We're very lucky that he decided to come a few weeks early. The doctor said that if he went full term that a natural child birth probably wouldn't have happened. Christina was damned determined not to get an epidural.

If you're wondering where the name came from, Conner (and that particular spelling) is the maiden name of my great-grandmother Craighead (my grandmother Angel's mother) who passed away in early 1996. We actually picked that name out a long time ago. When Christina was first pregnant, we saw a family book that my great uncle had put together, and we both immediately said that would be a good boy's name. Once we found out we were having a boy, there was not much discussion about the name, only that we'd keep it a secret from our families. No offense to our families, but the name picking was very personal and we did not want any input from anyone. (Thanks to our former co-worker Jeremy for that advice!) The middle name, James, is my grandfather's name. Some of you may know him as Ed -- Edward is his middle name. Edward has actually been passed along to my uncle and one of my cousins, and James seemed to roll off the tongue well. James actually wasn't decided until about 8 a.m. yesterday. It was a toss up with a family name on Christina's side, but we both liked the way James sounded. I like the initials C.J. too. For the next baby -- which we have no immediate plans for -- will likely have names from Christina's side. Family is important to both of us and we feel that carrying on family names in some sort of way is important.

Thanks to everyone for their comments on here, on Facebook, phonecalls, etc. Christina will surely offer more details and thoughts very soon! There's lots more to tell!