Baby Girl has a name

Aveta or Lyregwyn (Gaulish goddess): was a goddess of female-fertility, childbirth and midwives, also associated with all fresh water. Aveta is known mainly from clay figurines found at Toulon-sur-Allier, France. The models show the goddess with infants at the breast and apparently she is concerned with nursing mothers. The figure is often accompanied by a small lap-dog.

Alyra Gwendalyn Speed,

It has been so hard for us to choose a name for you. Mommy would pick one, and Daddy just didn’t quite like it, and vice versa. We were both looking for the perfect fit for you. I first came across the reference to Aveta or Lyragwyn when I was about 7 months pregnant with you. My friend, Paula, had suggested goddess names, and I liked that idea. Because of Mommy and Daddy’s Irish heritage, I went in search of Celtic goddesses. I stumbled on Aveta. Since we had recently started thinking about a homebirth with a midwife, and were planning to deliver with midwives either way, I liked its origin. I posted it on facebook, just as something I liked, and people thought it was my choice for you. It wasn’t. Daddy didn’t feel a click with it, so it went on the list of considerations, but like all the others was left with a feeling of “not too sure”.

At some point we decided to just wait till you were born and let you tell us your name. Now, I sit here with you in my lap, three days old and un- named. I was looking again at previous possibilities yesterday and came across Aveta. When I read the description of the goddess Aveta, it brought tears to my eyes. I thought, “how perfect, to name you in honor of the incredible experience of your entrance into this world!”

Your birth was amazing! As beautiful and precious as their births also were, your brothers’ births left me questioning my body. Because Jacob was born in a place that did not honor birth, babies or mommas, our experience left something wanting for both of us, and a cut happy doctor left me a big scar. I am sure we were moments from an emergency c-section with him. Elias’s birth healed the wounds of my early experience to some degree. I knew after Elias, that I could do it, I just thought, not very well. He was hard to get out, and I felt like a Mac truck had hit me afterward. I also believe I was very close to a c-section with him because I was pushing for so long.

I worried while I was pregnant with you that I had just barely gotten away with vaginal births with those two, and yours would be the birth that pushed me over the edge. Many of my friends were advocates of homebirth, but I just didn’t think I was that brave. Daddy was also afraid of homebirth and things going wrong. We sought care at the MWC, and planned for another hospital birth.

Over the course of your pregnancy we began reading. Mommy and Daddy both read Ina May Gaskin’s guide to Childbirth. Because of that book, we became much less fearful of the idea of homebirth, and both started believing a little more in the power of the female body to produce children (as opposed to the medical treatment of birth as a highly volatile event with almost universally necessary intervention).

Granted, we were planning your birth at the birth center, which has a more natural view of women and birth that your standard hospital, but still is a hospital with significant medical influence. Don’t get me wrong, I loved Nell, the midwife that delivered Elias, and I know that she pushed protocol a bit to keep me out from under the knife, but that very thing was the issue- that she had to push protocol to keep me cut free.

I was unhappy with Elias’s birth experience mostly because of the way that he was treated after he was born. He was poked, and prodded, scrubbed and taken away from me. I wanted none of that for you. I wanted to waive all testing, shots, baths, etc. and just let you enter the world in peace. I had studied the pros and cons of each procedure, and felt that most were unnecessary and others could very reasonably be delayed.

Daddy started researching the stuff I wanted to waive, and he was afraid to waive some of it because he felt there was an infection risk associated with going to a hospital where all the sick people bring their germs. He was hesitant to waive things under those circumstances.

I met Terri as a hypnobirthing instructor. Daddy and I both adored her instantly. We had been teetering with the idea of homebirth, but that is not why we went to see her. I was sincerely hoping to try hypnobirthing. While we were sitting there in the presence of this wonderful energy coming from this homebirth midwife/ doula/ hypnobirthing instructor, the ideas we had been playing with for potentially changing our birth plan came up again. I thought “I’d love to have this woman at my birth- her energy just really works for me.” Daddy had been saying “ why take a healthy baby and a healthy momma to a place for sick people?” ever since he decided that we had to do the eye cream if we were going to the hospital. By the day after we met Terri (and she told me it wasn’t too late to switch care) we decided to go for it.

I was still little scared of something going wrong, but after meeting Terri, and then Jenny, I knew that I was in good hands! I knew they wouldn’t push on me or intervene unless it was truly necessary. I knew that the intimate experience that Ina May described as the miracle of birth might be mine.

Nothing, I mean NOTHING went wrong. (Well, ok, I have a little wish that there was a video of your entrance, but…) Your birth was astonishing and healing and simply everything we could have hoped for. Daddy has said 10 times since you got here that he is going to tell everyone homebirth is the way to go. He was so excited about you that he wanted you put you straight in the car and drive you around to everyone he knew to show you off.

It was our experience. Mine, daddy’s and yours. It was childbirth in everything it could be. You were born with amazing swiftness; you came through my body without tearing it up. You did a great job being born! The three of us made our way together. I felt so much love for you. I felt strong, capable and as feminine as I could possibly feel. I am a birth goddess, as they say. Terri arrived at the last minute and kept anything from going wrong. She helped me make good pushing technique decisions. She made sure you were safe and that my body was intact after your passage. She and Jenny had already done so much as the midwives who believed in midwifery, in women, and in me and my ability to bring you to this world safely and without a lot of external tooling.

Daddy kissed me moments after you were born and told me that I was amazing. I don’t remember his exact words, but I remember the feeling. All of these things are so precious, precious because of so many things.

Your birth helped restore of my faith in my ultimate femininity. As daddy says you can’t get more feminine that giving birth. The strength I feel now for my self and for you. We are women, we are strong. I can help you grow up with more faith in your femininity than my earlier situations allowed for me. I can give you more faith in your body in general, because I now have more faith in mine. What fret should I have over the straightness of my nose or the weight of my body? I can give birth. I am powerful and strong and capable of doing what my body was designed to do! You, too, my little girl are strong, beautiful and capable of full femininity. Your potential is unlimited. You will be stronger knowing these things. Life will not be as limited to you because of your femininity as it has been for our mothers. Life can be more because of your femininity; your birth has helped restore some faith in that wisdom for me. I want to share that faith with you.

I want this name for you to remind myself everyday of the power of femininity that childbirth- your birth- made me feel, and of the midwives who guided me through it- Ina May, Terri, and Jenny. I want you to think of yourself as strong, feminine and capable of anything. Your name can remind you of the strength of women, of your strength. It can remind you of the power of faith in ourselves, and the power of the faith your father, and the midwives had in me and my capability to bring you to this world.

It can remind you of this power that you now inherit. You are strong, you are capable, your are the beauty that is woman!

This letter was written over the course of several days. You are now 5 days old and it has been settled. When I suggested Aveta, Daddy went looking for information on her. I attached to Aveta, but it just didn’t sit with daddy. He suggested that we name you Lyra Gwendolyn after the goddess' other name. Lyra didn’t feel right to me. We struggled with if or a couple of days. I was lying in the bed with you this afternoon, and Alyra pooped into m head. I looked at you and it immediately stuck. Daddy said – “Yeah, that is pretty, “ and I was happy because it retains the reference meaning to which I was so attached.

Welcome Alyra Gwendalyn Speed!!