Eden receives her name

Eden received her name on November 21, 2013, the 8th day after birth, which was her due date to be born!  I was so sure that she was going to be late (before we found out she was breech) that it was quite surreal to be naming her on November 21.

We didn't tell anyone her English or Hebrew name before the ceremony.  Our families were remarkably cool about this and didn't push us at all!  This may or may not have been because I was a pretty big pain in the butt about this kind of thing throughout the pregnancy.  Some nonfamily made fun of us though.

Jewish tradition requires a bris to take place on the 8th day after a baby boy's birth, but does not have the same requirement for girls.  We did not know whether we were having a boy or a girl (we thought boy, actually), so we just told everyone to plan on the 8th day.  When she turned out to be a girl we could have chickened out and scheduled it for later, but we decided to go ahead and do it, because 1) we wanted to be egalitarian about the whole entering the covenant of the Jewish people thing and 2) the whole no one knowing her name thing - we could only keep that going for so long.

But we had already started on the e-invitation before she was born, so it had all boy colors and a graphic called "boy quilt" on it. And we didn't have time to change it.  Result:

For some reason, this completely cracked me up in the hospital.

Eden is named for her paternal great-grandmother Edna (z"l), with whom she shares a birthday!  And although her birthday was semi-scheduled, we did not know about that coincidence until after Eden was born.  (Note: Eden also shares a birthday with her Uncle Matt, which we did know about.)

Not sure whether we would do 8th day for a girl again - it felt pretty rushed trying to put it all together!  But it was a very lovely ceremony, with members/alum of my a cappella group Octave singing "On Children," her grandfather speaking about her namesake great-grandmother Edna, and being wrapped in her grandfather's and great-grandfather's tallitot for the ceremony as special family and friends recited blessings.  Her dad even wrote a song for her, though he hasn't quite managed to memorize the words yet!

If you missed the naming, Eden's ... first cousin once removed (?  my cousin) managed to watch it remotely and video it!  Here is the link:

Part 1:
http://youtu.be/EDVbFbKdxI0

Part 2:
http://youtu.be/_DlpByI3zzU