Katrina blew, but this kid kept his cool

COVINGTON, La. -- Rescued from a great flood while he was just a frozen embryo in liquid nitrogen, a boy entered the world Tuesday and was named after the most famous flood survivor of them all, Noah. Noah Benton Markham -- 8 pounds, 6 1/2 ounces -- was born to Rebekah Markham, 32, by Caesarean section after growing from an embryo that nearly defrosted in a sweltering hospital during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

"All babies are miracles. But we have some special miracles," said Wanda Stogner, a cousin of Markham.

Relatives gathered around New Orleans police officer Glen Markham, 42, as the proud father carried the tiny blanket-wrapped bundle topped by a pink-and-blue cap out of the operating room at St. Tammany Parish Hospital. For a few seconds he tried to make them guess whether the baby was a boy or a girl.

Then he announced, "It's a boy!" to an eruption of cheers and applause.

Two weeks after Katrina hit, law officers used flat-bottom boats to rescue the Markhams' embryos and about 1,400 others stored in coolant tanks at New Orleans' Lakeland Hospital.

The tanks had been topped off with liquid nitrogen and moved from the first floor to the third as the storm drew near, but the hurricane swamped the hospital with 8 feet of water and knocked out the electricity.

The Markhams decided that if they had a girl, she would be named Hannah Mae, because Hannah means "God has favored us." A boy would be named after the biblical builder of the Ark, an idea that came from Rebekah Markham's sister-in-law.

"That is the best name!" said Ramon Pyrzak, lab director for the Fertility Institute of New Orleans, where the Markhams created embryos from their sperm and eggs after nearly a decade of trying to have a baby.

Noah's older brother, 2-year-old Glen Witter "Witt" Markham Jr., whose embryo was created at the same time as Noah's but implanted immediately in 2003, stood on his mother's hospital bed and leaned forward to give the baby a gentle kiss.

"So soft!" Witt said.

If the embryos had thawed, each woman who wanted another baby would have had to undergo another expensive round of fertility drugs, egg harvesting and in vitro fertilization.