Back in June I posted the consultation for the wee one whose mama just let me know has arrived: Teresa Catherine, called Tessa! Mama Beth writes,

“We named her Teresa Catherine after Mother Teresa and St Catherine of Siena ❤ And so far we are calling her Tessa … She was born 10-10, 7 lbs 11 oz 21 inches 🙂 “

The name decision has a beautiful story too:

“I was infertile for 4 years. I ended up having stage 4 endometriosis and I’ve had 3 surgeries to remove it. The last one was this past December. I used to go on a mission trip to Mexico every summer until my oldest daughter was born. The last summer I went, I went with our priest to the missionaries of Charity and attended mass with them. Afterwards I asked the sisters to pray that I could have a baby. (We had been married and trying to conceive for 3 years at this point.) The sisters literally started laughing and jumping up and down and said, “this is Mother Teresa’s specialty!” They gave me a medal and a card with a piece of her sari in it and promised to pray. Exactly one year later (to the day) we found out we were pregnant with Madeleine. 🙂

So a few months ago, I was cleaning my drawers and found the Mother Teresa medal and put it on. I had never considered the name Teresa. One evening I asked my husband what he thought of Teresa and call her Tessa. He immediately said “I think that is it!” We visited St Maria Goretti’s relics a few weeks ago and I touched the medal to the glass so now it’s a 3rd class relic too!

We actually didn’t know her middle name for sure until I was in labor. Ken really liked Catherine, but we considered saving it for a first name. But we decided we wanted it for her. My aunt’s middle name was Catherine, she died of cancer when I was 10. And my husband is a convert and right after he converted he went to Europe for 5 weeks and visited Catherine of Siena’s church over there.