March 25th, 2014 at 6:14pm

Juniper Maya Rohr's first moments. 

Juniper Maya Rohr was born at home 12 days past her due date and after 23 hours of labor. She arrived weighing 7 pounds, 12 ounces, and measuring 20 inches long. She is a strong, healthy baby with a perfect round head and a beautiful, bold cry that rips our hearts apart every time we hear it. 

On her name: 

The name Juniper came from a dream Andy had one evening several years before we were married. He said he saw our daughter running down a hallway. He yelled after her "Juniper!" and so it became the name we used to regularly refer to the daughter we might have one day, until the day came that we were ready for her to join us. And so she has. 

Selecting her second name was more involved. One day in looking at Hebrew names (in anticipation of her naming), we came across the name Maya (or Maayan) which means "brook" or "spring." As we looked into the name more carefully, we found that Maya has a great number of meanings across many faiths and cultures: Divine Goddess, mother of Buddha, power and wisdom, spirit, magic, sleep, and so on. We had a few middle names selected prior to this discovery and my last name thrown into the mix, making for an exhaustingly long name. I kept having the vision of Juniper struggling to write out all of her names, and later in life becoming frustrated by the lack of focus in our choice. One day, on my way home from work, I kept thinking "Juniper Maya Rohr" until suddenly I found myself crying. A sign I couldn't ignore. It was so beautiful and simple, so fitting. I ran home to Andy and a week before she arrived, we settled on her name.