Adele Cynthia Gail

Adele Cynthia Gail

Join us in welcoming Adele Cynthia Gail to this bright, fast-paced world. We’re beyond excited to have her with us, now. Earlier this morning, we fretted our way through a lot of work. Adele will enjoy having a kind of verbal palindrome, being born on 11/20/2011, but that only works if we say the year “twenty-eleven,” which we’ll do from now on.

Labor began for Lissa and Adele just before six this morning, but the contractions were more-or-less tolerable for a while, giving all of us time to eat breakfast and drink coffee (Miles excluded from that, of course), all after a good night’s sleep. None of those things happened with Miles’ birth, so we didn’t really anticipate what would happen next.

The whirlwind: I kept M occupied while Lissa sang through contractions. One thing he did this morning was to write his own name. He’s 2. Because of what we were doing, this went almost unnoticed. We feel a little bad for this, but we’ll make it up to him. Anyway, Lissa sang through contractions, and some friends from church came to watch M while we went to the hospital. My sister showed up just before we left; she helped Lissa into the car.

M loves his Tita. And he told her Adele's name.

So, on our way to the hospital, Lissa kept telling me she was pushing. As I ran through at least 3 red lights at around 60 mph (speed limit 35!), I looked down and saw the top of the baby’s head. So I called the hospital and told them to have people ready at the doors. Finally, Adele came out right when we got to the hospital, while we were still in the car.

Mum and daughter

Adele is named after two grandmothers, my mom (Cynthia) and Lissa’s mom (Gail).

We chose Adele because she has auburn hair, and because we like that name a lot. Also, Adele’s music helped Lissa through labor a lot. She was “rocking out to ‘Rolling in the Deep’ this morning, and it’s been running through my head!”

Adele means noble, kind. And we hope she lives up to this, being both noble and kind, two qualities that are among the most important in life. She's a little heroine. No one caught her; someone pulled her out, but she birthed herself. She wanted it that way.

M and Papa inspect Adele. She's all right.

M. enjoys the coloring book and new colors that his baby sister gave him.

"Mum, you did good work. It was hard."

Adele shares a birthday with several persons of note. Edwin Hubble, Karl von Frisch, and Joe Biden were all born on this day, also the anniversary of the release of Windows 1.0, the 1820 attack on the Essex by a sperm whale (the inspiration for Moby-Dick), the beginning of the Nuremberg Trials and the end of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Adele is a lovely little girl, whose place in history is yet to be determined. All that we know for now is that she brings a bright smile to all faces, even her older brother’s.

Family photo