Life with Madeleine
We welcomed our little girl one week ago today. Madeleine Jacoba Hope.
Madeleine comes from the root ‘Magdalen’ meaning ‘High Tower.’ Therefore she is named after Mary Magdalene and also the wonderful writer, Madeleine L’Engle. Jacoba (pronounced Yacoba) is my grandmother’s middle name, common to the Dutch, which shares the same Hebrew root as my brother James’ name. Hope is a word that has particularly captured me this year (I wrote about it here.) Also, we felt the name appropriate due to to the amount of times we had to reach out to Jesus for hope during her labour and delivery. It was a long journey to meet our little girl.
Madeleine weighed in at 9 lbs 11 oz after 81 hours of labour, start to finish. Although we laboured almost entirely at home, she was delivered naturally by our midwives at Burnaby General Hospital in the wee hours of the morning. Mommy was too tired to go anymore without a little help (a small amount of IV Oxytocin.)
Our new life with Madeleine:
In the words of Madeleine L’Engle, one of our little girl’s namesakes: “Jesus was not a theologian. He was God who told stories.”
Our prayer is that our little one will tell the story of Christ through her beautiful, adventurous, and marvelous life.
3 comments
Hey!~
Nice to see another post :) I am so impressed with your endurance….80 hours, that is pretty crazy, Christina!!! I’m sure God was helping you through! You are looking healthy and good through lots of adjustments…so fast!!! By this time next year, she’ll be walking around no doubt!
In a few weeks or when you have time I’d love to pop by that Starbucks accross the street from your place to meet her and have a chat if you are recovered by then :) I am sure you have plenty of guests at the moment! Are my commenting too much haha? I can’t help it, especially after such a lovely post :) Take care.
oh Christina! i’m soooo excited for you. i LOVE madeleine l’engle and had considered that as a girl’s name as well. she is beautiful. you are an amazing mother already. can’t wait to read more about your life with your little one. xoxo
Thanks Em and Julia. :) There can never be too many comments, in fact — most of them are on facebook these days as my blog posts as ‘notes’. Julia — I’d love a visit. Let’s talk soon.
Leave a Comment