Well, for those of you who have been checking the site every day to see if the new baby has arrived, you can consider your quest concluded because Kiera Jean Clancy breathed her first lung-ful of fine Scotish air. Yup, Kiera Jean is the name. Kiera is pronounced like Key- Air- ah. However, the Scots seem to say it a little more like Keera, which I seem to favor. So, that’s the first name, and the middle name is Jean, after my Grandma… And, for all those who know my Grandma, Yes! She cried. (Sorry I told everyone Grandma, but I doubt anyone’s too surprised.)
Anyway, it was a very quick labor, four hours or so. Rachel had been having contractions (I keep wanting to call them contraptions) for the last couple of days, but they weren’t consistent until late this morning. We figured we still had time, so we had lunch. Well, after the food and a brief rest, they were really coming on strong. By the time we got to the hospital, she had had more contraptions than Thomas Edison. Seriously, they were coming every three minutes, and hard. The first bed they put her in was really tiny, and her feet hung off the edge. But, we were both really excited.

This is the little bed that Rachel was on when we first got there. I thought it was cute the way her feet hung from the bed.

Most of that excitement had turned to pure focus by the time that we arrived on the labor ward, a floor up. While the nurses rushed around to get everything prepared, the moans that had previously accompanied each contraction had turned to screams. And, I even think that I heard a growl or two in there. And, then when Rachel shouted at the top of her lungs, amidst her prayers to Jesus, ” I CAN’T DO THIS!” The busy nurses, paused for a second as they looked at each other, as if to say with their eyes, “Ok, she’s ready.”
Sure enough, after only being in that room for 30 mins or so, Rache gave a few pushes and… voila, the first Scotish Clancy… was born. It was pretty sweet.

Look at the baby’s cute lil’ feet! Awwww.

For those who like the stats, the baby was 8Lbs 3 oz, and born on Feb 10, 2007 at around 4:30 pm (Uk time). Quite a bit smaller than Aria, who weighed in at 9 lbs 11 oz. But, what she lacked in size, she made up for in cuteness. The pics don’t do her justice, but we thought we’d throw some up there for everyone anyway. We’ll keep you posted on how things are going. Rachel will be in the hospital for a couple of days, but nothing to worry about, everyone’s fine.

Here, Aria is reacting with a mixure of joy and concern. Joy that she’s with this baby, but concern that Kiera’s crying. Watching the two of them was adorable. Oh, and for anyone worried about the baby catching chick pox from Aria. Baby’s got mom’s immunity for 6 mos according to doc.

Oh, I forgot to mention Aria’s reaction to her new baby sister. Well, I was a little worried about the whole jealousy issue. I mean, I figured when Aria saw her mother with another little baby cuddled in those arms, that she would just try and crawl over the ‘intruder’ to get to mommy right? Her reaction couldn’t have been farther from that. She was just instantly in love. “Baby!” She cried while pointing to the baby, and then instantly started making the “give-me-that” noises while holding her arms out to the baby. I took her in my lap and helped Aria to hold her, and Aria was just in her glory. She just started kissing the baby’s head very gently while making her distinctive “MMMMWAA” kissing sounds. It was very adorable.
Check out the pictures. You can click on any of the pictures in this post to view the full size image. But, there are more pics
up on the gallery too, so check those out as well. More coming.
Blessings,
Feel free to leave questions if I forgot to mention anything in the comments.

“Leaving on a jet plane…”

Our travels were far from smooth, but God gave us grace and favour as we needed it in turn. We left India on October 2nd, taking an Indian Airlines flight to Mumbai (Bombay) and then transfering to British Airlines from Mumbai to London, London to Glasgow. I’d heard many poor reports on Indian Airlines’ reliability, but kept my fingers crossed as our layover in Mumbai was four hours long. The reports didn’t lie and I found myself caught in what seemed to be a bad dream. After a delay of over an hour we were finally settling into our seats on our flight when we were informed by the captain that we would have to wait while the grounds crew checked out a “minor technical difficulty”. Ten minutes later we were told that the “minor” problem now had the plane grounded and that we would have to wait in the departure area for an hour until another plane could take us to Mumbai and that yes, we would miss our connecting flight. I was beside myself and couldn’t look at anyone for all the tears crowding my eyes. However, God gave me the grace and peace I needed and I was prepared to wait the eleven to twelve hours in Mumbai airport until the next flight to London. We were not the only ones on that connecting flight to London and a large group of men had gathered around the airport manager, yelling at her and verbally abusing her for something she had no control over; such a outburst would have been quickly quelled in the Western world.

Aria is delighted and surprised at the strangeness of plane travel.

We finally boarded a plane and were now over three hours past the original time that we had been meant to leave. Because I had been able to accept the delay, the flight was much less stressful and I was able to enjoy Aria’s surprise and delight of the ground growing swiftly farther away below us as we took off. She bounced from one small oval window to another, occasionally taking a quick break to slurp some juice through the straw of her juice box. When we landed we were informed that just maybe we would be able to make our flight to London, but we’d have to hurry as we had to pick up all our luggage and get from the domestic airport to the international one, which just happened to be in a different part of the city. As John called British Airways to let them know we were going to try to make it, I grabbed a cart and Aria to get our luggage. Ours was among the first to show itself and I quickly piled our bags on the cart, setting Aria on top, and then raced across the room to where John was. We hurried outside, found a taxi, and were soon heading out through the streets of Mumbai in a small yellow cab, our bags piled around us. The pollution in the air seemed much worse than Hyderabad and the humidity caused by Mumbai’s close proximity to the Arabian Sea had us sweating by the time we reached the airport. We gave our driver a good tip, then hurried up to the check-in desk. Only when we were assured that we’d make the flight did we feel like we could really breathe again. Out of the many people from our first flight who had the same connecting flight to London as us, we were the only ones who took the chance that we’d make the flight–and we did! I felt like God honoured our good attitudes toward the air crew whereas many of our fellow passengers took their anger out on whoever they could.
But, this wasn’t our last problem of the day. The next issue turned out to be our luggage. After all the time and effort I’d put into meticulously checking and rechecking the weight of our bags (I used a post mail scale that was extremely accurate), measuring our bags, and checking for any changes regarding baggage allowance on the British Airways website everyday, we were told that we had one too many bags by the man at the desk. We argued and pleaded with him, but he wouldn’t budge. Our choice came down to repacking our bags and leaving 18 kilos of our stuff on the sidewalk outside, or paying three hundred dollars for the carry-on in question. Thankfully, a manager came out and finally had mercy on us, checking the bag for free. God is gracious. You must realize that our luggage allowance in leaving India was one-third the amount that we had been able to take with us. Losing 18 kilos would have been a big deal!

The best way to recover from jet lag.

After having been up for twenty-three hours, all but one of those hours spent travelling or in airports, we finally arrived in Glasgow and were happy to fall into bed in my sister and her husband’s apartment. We spent a lovely, relaxing week with them, getting a bit acquainted with the area, celebrating my brother-in-law’s birthday (he’s only six days older than me), baking, eating beef, visiting Glasgow and Edinburgh, and getting to know and interact with some of the people of the church there. The weather, being cool, was definitely a shock to our systems, but it felt good to once again don a jacket.

John, Rachel, and Aria outside the Blue Lagoon in Iceland, surrounded by black lava rock.

We flew out from Scotland on Tuesday and greatly enjoyed our three and a half hour layover in Iceland, where we took a shuttle to the Blue Lagoon and enjoyed a warm soak in the natural hotsprings that are fifteen minutes from the airport, compliments of Iceland Air! Aria has now visited five countries in her short life. It was nice to arrive in the States and see John’s sister’s smiling face at the end of immigration and customs lines, waiting to welcome us. We’ve been enjoying our short visit in New Jersey and I celebrated my birthday here yesterday, but it will be nice to unpack those bags.
No more major packing for me, thank you very much! At least for three more months.;-)

I guess it would be safe to say that Aria’s babyhood so far has been far from normal: dorm living as a newborn, moving cross-country, flying half-way across the world, experiencing three continents, and living more than half her life in India. Her life is far from mundane and we are about to add two more countries to the three she’s already experienced—Scotland and Iceland (we’ll spend a few hours outside the Iceland airport during our layover on the way to NY at a natural hot springs).

Aria’s skin greatly contrasts with one of the workers at the campus where Jayne and Dean live. (photo compliments of Jayne Gilge)

Because of her very fair skin, she can’t help but be noticed amongst the little brown babies here in India. She’s gone through stages of liking the attention and shying away from it. Lately, she’s greatly enjoyed it and can’t stop waving to everyone we pass as we make our treks to the grocery store, vegetable stand, and post office.
One thing I greatly miss here is a church nursery. Aria’s interaction with other babies on Sundays is very limited as we try to keep her relatively well-behaved through the hot church service. From where she sits, she sees all the young children walking around and would love no more than to be able to get up and follow them, even if it means crawling around on the loose gravel. I’m discovering how much of a joy it will be to have a nursery at my disposal so I can actually BE in church when I’m there!

Aria pushing Tejasv around in his ducky walker.

Recently she has had the joy of spending time with babies around her age. She is frequently able to visit the little boy who lives across the hall from us—Tejasv. He is almost two months younger than her, but when it involves his ducky walker, they play remarkably well together. Aria likes it when Tejasv is in the walker and she can push him around in it. Since both our front doors are at the end of the hallway we are able to block off the rest of the hallway and the stairs with our cane chairs and let them play in the neighbour’s house, in our house, and

Manisha shows her affection by giving Aria a big kiss–one of the moments when they’re getting along!:-)

at the end of the corridor. Aria is sometimes very stubborn about leaving them and usually wails when I take her home, or when we need to go out. You’d think I beat her!;-)
Another friend of hers who she sees less often is Manisha, John’s supervisor’s daughter. She is a month and a half younger than Aria, but when it comes to walking, is way past her. Perhaps if Aria spent more time with her, it would rub off, but Aria is not to be pushed. The two babies make a lot of sweet little girl noises together and fight over each other’s sippy cups.
Aria also enjoys being around adults. She loves to go to Jayne’s

Lovely Jayne spending time with Aria in the beautiful outdoors.

house and play with plastic spoons and eat fruity yogurt. It took a little longer for her to warm up to Dean, but now she loves to sit in his lap as they listen to music together. She has her own special chair and spoon at their house and loves to crawl up their stairs, laughing mischievously when she is discovered!