you have a daughter named what??

Perpetua Genevieve.

Perpetua. Not Perpetual. Not "what?"

Some people "get it" (it is a Catholic name, after an early Roman martyr/saint).

I remember the first time we even discussed it I was not even expecting a child. I mentioned it in passing and Allen's response was "yeah, but what on earth would she go by?" and the subject was dropped.

Eventually I was expecting our 3rd baby and we had two sons. We didn't know whether we were having a boy or a girl but didn't really discuss names. The pregnancy went on and on and on. I was 9 days overdue when I finally did have the baby, a girl.

And when she was born, she was very ill. She had an APGAR score of 2. She had no respiratory effort, she was blue, and her heartrate was around 80 beats per minute. She had to have a full resuscitation, and spent the next week on a ventilator.

We were shell shocked, to say the least. She was a special baby, for sure. And we gave a special name. We prayed for St. Perpetua's intercession for our baby's health. Our Perpetua came "home" (to Anchorage, where we were staying) with us after 2 weeks, and then back home to Bethel a few days after that.

There hasn't been a minute that our girl has seemed to us to be anything less than the name we gave her. She's exceptionally kind and loving and sees gentle beauty in all things.

We are always asked the how/what/why of her name, what it means (is the meaning REALLY that hard?)... there's the abbreviated version.