The Newest Member of Our Family

Today is the due date of the baby we miscarried during Holy Week earlier this year.

We decided to name the little one, and it has been a very healing thing to wrestle with a name. We wrestled with names for our other three--why not this one? No one in our family pictures the baby as anything other than a boy (big surprise!), so a boy name it is:

Emmanuel Micah

I (Chris) went to the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in LaCrosse this weekend with Michelle. I was reading the story of St. Gianna Molla, who is a saint depicted, among others, in the beautiful shrine church. She was a pediatric physician who died in 1962 a week after her fourth child was born. She found out in her second month of pregnancy that she had uterine tumors and wanted her baby's life preserved at all costs. The baby was named Gianna Emanuela by her father. The name Emmanuel means "God with us" and it jumped out at me because it comforted me last year at Christmastime shortly after the death of my mom. As I pondered St. Gianna's passion for her child and respect for life, and the meaning of the name, it seemed right.

Guy picked the middle name. It is one we have had on the name list for every boy born so far. It's also a reminder of the first memory verse I can recall memorizing as a child, and the first one the boys memorized this year: Micah 6:8. What does the Lord require of you? To do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with our God.

We feel closer to the baby now, and look forward to being able to ask him for his prayers for our family by name. We wanted to share the name with you.