Bright Flower's Arrival

Announcing the birth of Kiran Jasmine Eyre on July 1 at 6:10 pm at the Ronald Reagan Medical Center at UCLA.

Kiran came 15 days early and surprised us all. Clarice started contractions at about 4 am on Tuesday morning, her last official day of work. We both promptly cleared our schedules and took advantage of a few hours to finish our mental and physical preparations. We arrived at the hospital at 4:40 pm, and Clarice got settled into a bed at 5 pm while the triage nurse was completing admission proceedings. Six minutes later she felt the urge to push and her water broke. At 6:10 pm, after only 20 minutes of hard pushing, Kiran squeezed into this world with a panicked cry and then settled into looking around and blinking. She is beautiful, perfectly formed, and has dark hair; more than Jackson had by one year of age. She has great grandma's nose, just like her brother, and much less of Daddy's pronounced cranium. She is even more mellow-tempered than Jackson was and makes little squirrel noises. Mom is doing exceptionally well due to a much shorter and easier labor and delivery than last time (less than half).

The family is all home together now. Jackson has been very tender with Kiran and surprisingly not jealous. He was very excited to give her the giraffe plush he bought her and was very excited to receive the surprise that Kiran "bought" for him (more train set additions).

Kiran means beam or ray of light and Jasmine is a fragrant flowering vine (we thank all of you who offered opinions about her name). Kiran's birth stats were: 7 lbs, 5 oz and 21 inches long. For comparison, Jackson was 6 lbs, 4 oz and 19.5 inches long at birth and he came ten days early.

We were so blessed to have our good friend Emily (mother of one of Jackson's best friends) present to document Kiran's arrival. Those pictures are posted at her website. More of our own pictures are posted at our family web gallery:

Thanks for your thoughts and prayers. We are exceedingly excited and grateful for God's provision and blessings.

Ian, Clarice, Jackson, and Kiran