Lily got baptized one year ago

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December 5, 2022

One year ago, we were in Chicago for a week cause Jim had just started a non-work life (which lasted for five months). This trip got planned like two-three weeks before. J suggested that we try to get Lily baptized while being there. He called his grandma who very awesomely arranged everything with her church. I started to google dresses for L to wear but didn’t find anything interesting. I wrote something to my mom about it and she mentioned that they have the dress that me, my sister and herself were all baptized in. Since it was short notice and we were running out of time, my parents kindly shipped it with express and luckily it arrived just in time before we had to fly to Chicago.

We landed on Thursday night, spent Friday just catching up with J’s mom and stepdad. Then on Saturday, December 5th, we got up, got ready and soon we were driving to the Catholic church. I kept writing with my sister and told her to be ready for video chat. Since she couldn’t join in person and we had asked her to be Lily’s Godmother, the pastor had agreed to let her join on video while L’s grandma Anna took her place in person.
We arrived at the church right before set time and knocked on every door we could find but nobody opened. Soon J’s grandparents and his dad with wife arrived as well. It was raining so we all just stayed in our cars. Then they finally opened the door and let us in. I had to go to the bathroom and change Lily into her dress, J’s dad came in with a cute bracelet gift that L was supposed to wear but I barely understood what he said cause I was occupied and at the same time Michael who is Lily’s Godfather (Jim’s friend from college), and his wife Brook arrived. We were only given a few minutes to change L and it was so stressful that I didn’t even have time to say hi to anyone. We rushed in to sit down on the benches at front. As I said that I have to call my sister, the pastor started the whole ceremony. So I never got to call her and the whole thing was over before we knew it.

The ceremony was funny, sweet and super short (13 minutes), just perfect for us actually (our wedding in Italy was 7 min long haha). Lily cried the whole time. We were the only ones in the church, this was the only thing happening this day, but we still had to wear facemasks the whole time which wasn’t super fun but whatever, we got it done.

Anna kindly agreed to hold my phone on a mini tripod so that the baptism could be filmed and showed to my family later. And Brook thankfully said yes to be the photographer with my camera:)

The dress fit her perfectly, so cute! 
Apparently the lady who was gonna add my sisters name back in the 90s got sick and then I guess they never added it to the dress. I hope we can get both my sisters name (Denice Ulla) and our daughters name (Lily Therése) added to it♥

So, Lily got baptized which was a wish from Jim and his side of the family. I was brought up Christian as well and I even did the confirmation when I was 14, but I want Lily to be able to choose for herself what religion she wants to believe in, if any. But since there’s no harm in baptizing her, I agreed to do it and she can make a choice of her own later in life after we have introduced her and taught her about what there is to believe in.

I have always been super interested in finding out more about the different religions, spiritual practices or beliefs. In fact, this interests me so much that when I studied to become a dance teacher and it was discussed if we would have to pick a non-dance topic as our second major instead of dance style (the Swedish government and the school system suck and this is why I chose to only get a bachelor in one major), I immediately knew that “religion” would be my pick (in Sweden you actually have religion study in school unlike America, I had it in both 8th grade and in high school). As a kid I loved spending time at my grandmas so that I could ask her all the questions I had about the Bible and God etc. I did the confirmation because I still had a million questions. But, when my priest didn’t answer any of my questions and more or less just laughed at them, I wasn’t sure I wanted to go through with it, but I thought that IF I would find the answers later in life then maybe I would regret that I didn’t confirm, so I said ok. 22 years and tons of my own research later, I’m still looking for those answers and more has come up within religion and spirituality. I have opinions and my own interpretations and potential believes, but I will not discuss them here. All I want to say is that I made a choice to let my daughter be baptized because her father wanted that for her and I will make sure that he (and myself, cause I think I know more) teaches her about Christianity and the different traditions and at the same time teach her about everything else. She is her own person and deserves to have a voice and a choice. 

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