Caleb Christopher Michael Murphy

Caleb Christopher Michael Murphy has arrived!!! Many of you are anxiously awaiting the details, here they are....
I awoke on Tuesday February 3rd at 4 am with back pain and cramps, they stayed with me all morning so Caeden and I had a lazy day around the house. I laid him down for a nap at 1:30 and I was going to take one myself. However, I was woken up at 1:45 with my first contraction. I continued to have contractions at home until 6 pm when they were 3 minutes apart and I knew it was time to get to the hospital. Caeden went to the Murphys and Jay and I drove to the hospital and arrived at 6:30 pm. They checked my stats and sure enough contractions were getting closer together, I had progressed to 6 cm dialation and I was 90-100% effaced. I was admitted and then through a pain level of 10 for me in contractions I ordered an epidural. (Something that I struggled with for a few minutes because I rarely take any kind of drugs, medications, shots etc...) Jay leaned over during my struggle and said I am behind you with or with out the epidural. Delivery is going to be hard no matter what and you are just as amazing and strong of a woman if you choose the shot. Do what you want and don't be worried about anyone else's response. In that moment I was so grateful for my husband's advice and through tears I asked for the epidural. The hard part was that I had to wait for a bag of IV to go into my body and I had to wait for the Dr. I had made it to 8 cm by this point and was miserable!! The Dr. came around 8pm and had a hard time finding a good spot to put the needle (supposedly I have a lot of bone and muscle but not a lot of fat back there) So after 3 tries it worked. Holy cow try holding still for forever during contractions to get the shot to work. That was an adventure all in of itself. From 8 to 10pm Jay and I hung out and chatted and I couldn't feel contractions at all, it was beautiful!! At 10pm I felt ready to push and I did that for 41 minutes. Even through the epidural I was screaming to get his head and shoulders through, he was a big boy for this little girl. :) Caleb arrived at 10:41 pm. Immediatley I noticed that he had lighter hair and skin than Caeden did when he came out, and I was thrilled. I would of course love him whichever way God had created him but with both of my darkies at home I was hopeful for a lighter one like myself. :) He was 21.5 inches long and his first weigh in was 8lbs. 14 ozs (they brought a different scale later that night and he was 8lbs. 15.6 ozs. They said, this kid is a "9 lber." The Dr.s and nurses kept refering to him as a big boy. (The typical baby they see is 7lbs and 19 inches long.) We stayed at the hospital through Thursday night and we are now home enjoying life as a team of 4! The 3 of us continue to fall more in love with Caleb each day as we get to know our newest son and brother. He really is a treasurer and we thank God that He has entrusted us with His sweet son!!
We arrived at the name Caleb for a few reasons. 1 we like the character of Caleb in the Bible and 2 we believe that the adjectives to describe Caleb are going to be present in him. Caleb means faithful, bold and brave. He has 2 middle names because we named him after both Grandpa's who's names we love the meaning of as well. Christopher is Christ bearer and Michael means who is like God? We truly believe that we have another Mighty King in our home that God intends to do big things in and through. We are so blessed with 2 men of God to raise up!
We have been adjusting to the new way of life pretty well. Caeden is kissing and wanting to hold his brother all the time. Last night he wanted to say prayers all by himself and in it he thanked God for his very own baby brother. He keeps saying, "he is soooo cute, or he is so beautiful." Oh how grateful we are that Caeden has a true love for his brother already. Jay has had work off since Tuesday and has been an amazing daddy and husband!! He is playing tons with Caeden, helping me out through our sleepless nights, picking up around the house, getting food served to us, doing it all. He is very protective of me healing properly from the tearing and natural delivery that has taken place. My boys and I are guarnteed to feel the void on Monday when he needs to return to work. I am adjusting to being a food machine again, and boy does this bud like to eat. He means buisness around the clock!! I am reminded again of how God thinks of it all when he prepares the mom to sustain their children through these first days, weeks, months, etc... It blows my mind!!
We so look forward to the day that you get to meet our precious Caleb!! Until then I plan to continue to post pictures of our family as we grow together into all that God has for us!!
Love,
Jay, Kirstin, Caeden and Caleb