The Name

Names are the first description of a person. When you meet someone the first thing and sometimes the only thing you find out is their name. So we wanted to pick the perfect one for our baby.  When we found out I was pregnant we immediately started discussing names. We each had some picked out but only a couple we both agreed upon. We both thought we were having a girl so we had a definite name picked out for a girl, up until week 20 when we found out we were having a boy.  For me it was really important to pick a name with great meaning.

Caedmon is a name we talked about long before I was pregnant. I read a book where one of the character's names is Kade. I love his character and his passion for God so I asked Jordan what he thought of the name. He liked it and mentioned the band Caedmon's call and so we looked up the meaning of the name Caedmon and it was "wise warrior". What a name! We both loved it. It's hard to name someone and have it be their name forever. There's a lot of pressure in picking the "right" name. We wanted something unique but not something that was so far off that he would hate his name growing up.

Jae-Sung was Jordan's name before he was adopted. His biological grandmother chose his name. It means "existent star" in Korean. To me the name has a lot of sentimental value. I love that Jordan was adopted because if he hadn't been I would have never met him but it also breaks my heart to think about how much he remembers and misses his family. So I wanted to honor where Jordan came from and the roots that are now in Caedmon. I want Caedmon to grow up knowing about where his dad is from and how he got here. It means a lot to me.

There is one famous Caedmon.
Wikipedia states "Caedmon is the earliest English poet whose name is known. An Anglo-Saxon who cared for the animals and was attached to the double monastery of Streonæshalch (Whitby Abbey) during the abbacy (657–680) of St. Hilda (614–680), he was originally ignorant of "the art of song" but learned to compose one night in the course of a dream, according to the 8th-century monk Bede. He later became a zealous monk and an accomplished and inspirational religious poet. His story is related in the Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum ("Ecclesiastical History of the English People") by Bede who wrote, "[t]here was in the Monastery of this Abbess a certain brother particularly remarkable for the Grace of God, who was known to make religious verses, so that whatever was interpreted to him out of scripture, he soon after put the same into poetical expressions of much sweetness and humility in English, which was his native language. By his verse the minds of many were often excited to despise the world, and to aspire to heaven."


We loved this! We have prayed many times that Caedmon would love the Lord with all his heart, his mind, and his soul and love others with so much grace.  We pray also that he would be a "wise warrior" for Jesus. Here is Caedmon's hymn. I hope it blesses you today.

Caedmon's Hymn (translated from Old English)
Now let me praise the keeper of Heaven's kingdom,
The might of the Creator, and his thought,
The work of the Father of glory, how each of wonders
The Eternal Lord established in the beginning.
He first created for the sons of men
Heaven as a roof, the holy Creator,
Then Middle-earth the keeper of mankind,
The Eternal Lord, afterwards made,
The earth for men, the Almighty Lord. <3<3

Here's what Caedmon looked like when we got to see him for the first time.

Dare I begin...

So here it is... another start to the blogging world in my life. Jordan keeps bringing up the idea of how I should blog. How he wishes I would blog and how he thinks it will be life changing for me. I must say I love to read other people's blogs and always hope that I could write something as interesting but thus far I have not been confident in my abilities so we will see how it goes.

18 weeks ago I was in labor at the hospital with my son. My labor had begun on a Sunday night and it was not until Thursday that I headed to the hospital. My labor was very weird. My contractions would start each night at about 8pm and by morning they would subside. Each day I would wonder, "is this THE day"? The day that would change my life forever, the day that I would realize how much I took sleep for granted, the day I would become a mommy.

Everyone told me to get sleep while I could but when I was pregnant I just wanted to sleep because I was so tired from being pregnant. Tired from not being able to sleep and just tired from making another human being in my womb. It's a lot of work. I must say I did not actually think about how much sleep I would not be getting when I was was 9 months pregnant and wanting to meet my little baby boy. My thoughts were consumed with getting things ready and making sure everything was in its place. And once I realized that something was always going to be out of place and I just needed to relax it was baby time.

So after 4 nights of contractions and only a few naps to keep up my rest, I headed to the hospital with the thoughts of "these people have got to do something for me. I can not keep going like this. If I am not in labor then they have got to knock me out so I can sleep." I was in pain and with each contraction I could not sit down or lie down. But to my surprise, once I got in the office of my midwife, she checked me and I was 9 or 8 cm dilated!! Then and there at about 9:45am I realized I was going to meet my baby for the first time that day. I was scared, excited, and nervous. I was prepared. We had our bags packed and in the care for almost a week by then and I knew all the birthing positions and what to expect at each stage.

I'm not going to go through all the gory details. I just want to tell you that it went perfectly as I hoped it would. I had prayed that I would not have to deal with awful contractions all the way to the hospital in the car. I had prayed that I would get to the hospital when I was close to the end and be able to stay home as long as possible. (8cm is pretty good) I had prayed that I would be able to handle natural labor. One day in my prayer time with the Lord, he reminded me to fix my eyes on him and that he would carry me through. That is what got me through the task of birthing. With each contraction, I was totally reliant on Jordan to hold me and remind me of breathing and rocking through the pain and that Jesus was going to carry me through it all. So with all that said I would like you to meet the newest addition to my life, Caedmon Jae-Sung. More to come on why we chose this name, what it all means, and how much he has taught me already in his 4 months of life.