She finally has a name!!! It took us a week, but we finally agreed on a name for our new baby/ daughter/ sister. And she is now called (drum roll please...)


ARIELLA


She is named after my great Aunt (my father's mother's sister) who left Hungary before the Holocaust for New Jersey, with her husband Jules. They never had any children. Her full name was Arabella, but we always knew her as Ella. Hence Ariella.


The name is a female version of Ariel, which is taken from Yeshiya chapter 29 verse 1 (and 2) and is a name for Jerusalem. According to the king James authorised version the prophet says "Ariel, the city where David dwelt! add ye year to year"

הוֹי אֲרִיאֵל אֲרִיאֵל, קִרְיַת חָנָה דָוִד; סְפוּ שָׁנָה עַל-שָׁנָה, חַגִּים יִנְקֹפוּ.

Literally it means the lion of G-d, as used by Sylvia Plath in her poem of the same name:

Stasis in darkness.
Then the substanceless blue
Pour of tor and distances.

God's lioness,
How one we grow,
Pivot of heels and knees! ---The furrow

Splits and passes, sister to
The brown arc
Of the neck I cannot catch,


Shakespeare, in the Tempest, described Ariel as an airy spirit.

And finally, according to Proctor and Gamble Ariel provides 'longer lasting freshness'

Suggested Names

Alit and the baby finally came home from the hospital last night (motzei yomtov). Alit spent the entire Pesach in hospital, apart from seder night. That is a long time! She is exhausted. Baruch Hashem everyone is well and there was no reason for them to have stayed so long, except that the hospital wanted to play things by the book and be over cautious.

As you can tell from the fact that I am still calling her 'the baby' we have not yet decided on a name. I just wanted to share with you some of the suggestions we have had (we are still open to sponsorship deals if anyone wants to 'name' a baby).

The suggestions ranged from the modern, such as Kineret, to the ultra-modern Shprintzeh Frumeh Freidle.
Then there were the topical names:
Since she was born during the omer someone suggested Sefira (and I suppose if she ever was ennobled she could be Countess Sefira)

Looking at the non-Jewish calendar (she was born on the Wednesday before Easter) there is always the option of Ashley Wendy, or the more generic Esther Bunny.
Somehow I don't think we'll go with those though.

The one name we are certainly not going to use is Hadassah, because although it is a beautiful name, we don't particularly want to remember the hospital experience. I know many people have had very positive experiences there, and if something goes wrong they have some of the best doctors there.

However, there were so many small things that were not done correctly (or not as correctly as they could have been done). I don't want to list them all, and I am not a doctor, so it could be that it is my ignorance, not their errors. There were also many wonderful nurses and doctors who did a fabulous job with a smile. However, the overall feeling we had was of a hospital who doesn't care about the patients as people, where there was little or no communication between shifts and between wards (e.g. between the baby ward and the mother ward), and no sensitivity to hormonal emotional mothers.

The only thing I will say specifically (and this was for me the final straw) is that the parking situation is designed to rip off the visitors. For example, there is a big sign saying that picking up or dropping off patients is free, if you exit within 20 minutes. You have to collect a ticket to show your time of arrival. However, even though there is a metal box with a big red button, there is no machine inside to print tickets. Therefore it is not possible to prove your time of arrival and they will charge you anyway when you leave. (I know that it is not a huge amount of money, but the parking attendant collecting the money told me 3 direct lies in the space of a minute - that there are 2 machines, that it only works with a car next to it, and that he has a record of it on his computer. - we are talking about an empty box, and I demonstrated that to him, but he still wouldn't let us out without paying).

So, my advice is, if you are going to Hadassah Ein Kerem to pick up or drop of a patient - use your bike!

Hopefully we'll have a name by Thursday morning, so stay tuned.

Mazel Tov

With thanks to the Maker of Heaven and Earth
We wanted to announce to you all the birth
Of a new Sedley girl
Who has entered the worl'
May she fill us and the whole place with mirth.


As the daf yomi cycle moves from Mo'ed katan to Chagiga, from evel l'yom tov we are excited and delighted to announce the birth of a new baby girl, who has gone from her aveilus at leaving the womb, to bring us much yom tov (and chol hamo'ed) joy.
She was born last night (17th Nisan/ 4th April) and is the biggest of our babies so far (by quite a margin - she was 3.742 kg which is 8.25 lbs), and mother and baby are doing really well.
We have no idea yet what the name will be, so we are open to any suggetions (or offers).
May we all merit to share many simchas together.

David and Alit Sedley

PS Here is the link to a short video of her, taken a few minutes after she was born. Ignore the blue blanket - they ran out of pink, but quickly remedied the situation.