Anahí Hope Macdonald

Our baby girl was born today. She is named Anahí Hope. Pronounced: Ana'ee. She will be called "Ana" for short.

Anahí is named after a barrio I lived in Paraguay, where I had many special experiences as a missionary bringing the gospel of Jesus Christ to the paraguayan people. It has always been a special name to me and I wanted to name a daughter Anahí. I mentioned this name to Amanda when we first were married and she liked it (which surprised me). Over the last 6 months of Amanda being on bedrest, she has been the one who really wanted to name her Anahí.

Technically the name means "beauty of the Ceibo flower". It comes from a legendary guarani (paraguayan indian tribe) princess who died while fighting the conquistadores. When she died she sang very beautifully pleading for her tribe, lands, and rivers. The next day, the Ceibo flower bloomed in the spot where she died. There is also a song about her legend.

Her middle name Hope comes from the hope that she has brought to our family. We had a difficult time trying to get pregnant for the 1st 4 years of our marriage. Finally, we tried an in vitro fertilization and were able to get pregnant with our twins Wallace and Carolyn. Unfortunately, things didn't turn out as planned and we lost Wallace and Carolyn last year on March 10th. It was a huge loss to Amanda and I. Luckily after a difficult recovery (3 months) and the day before we were going to go see the fertility Dr. we found out Amanda was pregnant! We were ecstatic!

This pregnancy has been a difficult one; with a cerclage, bedrest from October to the middle of March (fulltime bedrest from December to March 17th), a breeched baby, an unsuccessful version, a successful version, removal of the cerclage, and finally a miraculous birth. Hence the name Hope because she has brought us hope.

We are so grateful to God for this wonderful blessing in our lives. She is our sweet angel and we look forward to a lot of fun!!!

Sean