Hope for Japan

Grant, Allie, and Miho on our first outing

My dad, Rick, with Allie

Allie sleeping in Miho's arms

Leaving hospital

After 11 days past due, Miho finally gave birth to Allie Mika on Monday, June 28th, around 8:37am. She weighed 8 lbs 3 oz and came out with a full head of hair. With the help of an epidural, Miho was able to deliver the baby without screaming, crying, or other typical behavior generally associated with labor; she even was smiling afterwards!

Whereas Japanese hospitals keep women for an entire week and the US has women stay around 48 hours, we were able to leave the hospital by 3:30pm the same day! We sense this is partly due to the national healthcare plan that wants to cycle people through as quickly as possible, but also that Scottish women expressed how they are more comfortable in their own homes than a sterile hospital room. With the work culture of Japanese society, I imagine that women would not have the luxury of being pampered and waited on by their husbands right after delivery, since they tend to work up to 80 hours a week.

We were fortunate to have my dad here for the first few crucial days. He just went back to Des Moines, Iowa today after spending two weeks with us.

After spending so much money on our seminary education, we figured we might as well get some use out of our Greek and Hebrew by using it for our little girl’s name 🙂 In reality, we wanted to incorporate aspects of our faith and Miho’s family tradition into the name. Mi in Japanese means beautiful and has been used in all the girl’s name of her family (Mieko-mother, Miku-niece, Miwa-niece, Emiko-sister-in-law, and Minako-sister-in-law).

So, her name is: Allie (from the Greek word αληΘεια, aletheia, = truth)

Mika (from the Japanese/Chinese character 美香, Mika, = beautiful aroma [cf. 2 Corinthians 2:15]; and from the Hebrew name מִיכָה, Micah, = who is like; ex. Michael- who is like God)