The meaning of Flannery

Flannery is Irish, meaning red; russet or redhead; descendant of the red warrior.

It was on St. Patrick's Day last year that I saw a link online for Irish baby names. Since we are a little bit Irish, I clicked on the link to see what names were there. One of the names was Flannery, a name that we briefly talked about shortly after we were married, and the name of one of our favorite short story writers, Flannery O'Connor.
When I saw that Flannery meant red or redhead, it made me think of the word redemption. I wondered if this meant that if we were to have another baby, that it would be a sort of redemption pregnancy, that things would work out and be normal. I mentioned this to Nathan and we both really loved the name and what it meant to us.
As we found out that I was pregnant and we hit every milestone with seeming health and normality, we wondered if I was pregnant with Flannery. When it came time to find out the gender, we went to our appointment with anticipation. The technician started out showing us our baby, their heart, brain and bones, and it helped me to connect with our baby as a person. I knew that I already loved them, no matter who they were. So when she showed us evidence of gender, we were ecstatic. We were so happy that it was Flannery, as we had no other name!
And again, as things progressed normally and healthily, I continued to remember what Flannery meant to us and our belief that God made a promise to us through her. And everytime I would start to worry about details or be anxious about her or her health, I would remember this promise and would feel better.
Her first middle name, Elizabeth is my middle name, and my dad's mother's middle name. Apparently it was also her grandmother's middle name, so it was important to us to continue that naming tradition.
Her second middle name, Susan, is my mom's name, which again, made it all the more special and fitting that my mom got to be at Flannery's birth and "catch" her.
And oddly enough, our little Flannery was born with strawberry blonde hair, making her name that much more fitting!
We are so thankful that this indeed was a redemption pregnancy--that we got to experience things normally and that she made it to full term and is healthy.
We're thankful for our red warrior and can't wait to see who she grows up to be!