Jonah Sawyer Mitchell Locke

As of today, Baby Locke 3.0 is no longer in beta!  Jonah Sawyer Mitchell Locke was born this morning at 9:58am, weighing 9lbs 2oz, and measuring 21 inches long.  He was born on Friday, December 16th (the last day of final exam week in the fall semester of my last year in seminary) at Princeton Medical Center, in Princeton, New Jersey.

Things were touch and go for a little while at first. When Amy went into labor, Jonah was still pretty high up in the womb, and then his umbilical cord came down before his head did.  In order to prevent his head from getting caught in the umbilical cord, doctors held his head in place while Amy was wheeled into the operating room for an emergency C-Section.

Everything worked out ok, though.  While Amy was being stitched back together, I got to hang out with Jonah in the nursery, where I read to him.  I started out with two Old English poems, read in Old English, of course:  The Wanderer, and one called Hwæl or “The Whale.”  I thought these were rather appropriate, considering his name.  Next, I read some selections from John Steinbeck’s The Red Pony, followed by a little bit of Isaac Asimov’s novel Foundation.  Later, after we were back in our hospital room and after Amy and Jonah finally got to spend some quality time together, I read him J.R.R. Tolkien’s translation of the Book of Jonah from the 1966 edition of the Jerusalem Bible.  Somewhere in the midst of all that, I also recited Lewis Carrol’s Jabberwocky to him.

Jonah’s older siblings are excited to get to meet him tomorrow–I called Grady at his school this afternoon to tell him the news, and Abby got to see a picture of her new brother on Grandma Linda’s cell phone.

Right now he’s sleeping in his mother’s arms (although technically he’s supposed to be eating).  Welcome to the world, my youngest son. There’s so much I want to teach you, and so much you have to teach me.   Most of all, your mother and I, and your brother and your sister (and lots of other people across the nation) love you very much, and we’re glad you came.