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First baby not a yawner
By RYAN DAVIS, Times Staff Writer
She had doctors ensure that early Tuesday after they delivered Lexis Alyn Bolles via Caesarean section. The 26-year-old's fifth child was born at 12:10 a.m. Tuesday in East Pasco Medical Center. That afternoon red-faced Lexis, who has enough brown hair to cover the tops of her ears, greeted the world with a yawn. Several of them, in fact. But her delivery was not a yawner. At times, the 7-pound, 5-ounce girl's heart beat several times a second; other times it hardly beat at all, said family friend Tracy Martin. Martin and Bolles knew from the looks on the doctors' faces that something wasn't right. "It made everybody's heart race fast," Bolles said. At 8 p.m. while watching Pearl Harbor on video, Bolles started feeling sick and drove herself to the hospital. Doctors discovered the baby's heart rate was up, then down, up, then down. At 11:58, Bolles was treated and ready for an unscheduled Caesarean. She is not sure exactly what she was doing at midnight. The spinal sedation hit her hard. But by afternoon, she and Lexis were having one of their first conversations. "We made (it) through," mother said to daughter. "We (are) some tough cookies." Yawn, daughter said to mother. Bolles lives with Martin, Martin's husband, Ron, and the couple's two children in their Richland mobile home. Ron Martin thought of the girl's name. "I wanted something unique," Bolles said, "something that would sound pretty so that when they cut it down, it won't be some weird nickname." Bolles hopes, she said, that the 191/2-inch girl is the few inches on a path to a better life. Last New Year's Day Gina Bolles was unemployed, recovering from a car accident and unsettled by an arson fire that displaced her from another friend's mobile home. This New Year's day she has a job (at Wal-Mart) and a baby. But it won't be easy, Bolles said. She couldn't care for her first two children -- ages 11 and 8 -- and they are in foster care, she said. Her third childbirth was a miscarriage. Her fourth birth was a girl, 3-year-old Cheyenne Knight, who lives with a relative. Bolles doesn't want to talk about Lexis' father, she said. But he is helping support the girl. She will need it, she said. She and Martin haven't yet scrounged together enough money for a bassinet. For a day at least, those concerns were lost in the deep green of Lexis' eyes. "She came on a special day in a special way," Martin said. - Staff writer Ryan Davis can be reached in west Pasco at 869-6245, or toll-free at 800-333-7505, ext. 6245. His e-mail address is rdavis@sptimes.com.
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