BABY BRINGS MINERS HOPE AND REBIRTH

Copiapo, Chile (CNN) -- For one trapped miner in a collapsed mine in Chile, "Hope" weighs only 7 pounds. Esperanza, which means hope in Spanish, is the name of Ariel Ticona's baby girl. She is also believed to be the first child born to any of the 33 miners during their nightmarish weeks buried underground.

Esperanza was born Tuesday in a hospital about an hour's drive down a winding mountain road from the mine where her father is trapped.Ticona and his wife, Elizabeth Segovia, learned they were having a girl the day before the mine cave-in. They had planned to call her Carolina.

The girl's birth was not just a celebration for Ticona, his father said. "Immediately it gave all the miners there a lot of excitement," Hector Ticona said. "They were all very happy about her birth and that she will be called Esperanza."

The story of the baby's birth has been reported as far away as New Zealand, Germany and Singapore, and Esperanza has become a symbol that life continues for the miners despite their underground imprisonment.

The decision to change her name arrived to Ticona in the mine's depths. "He said, 'What if we call her Hope?'" Hector Ticona recalled. "Hope for the camp backing us, hope for getting us out of here, hope to keep fighting for my daughter, hope to unite my family.' "Ticona's wife agreed to the new name.

Before the mine collapse, Ticona promised Segovia he would be in the room when she gave birth. The wife decided to have the birth of their daughter videotaped. Over a video conference system that is one of their links to the outside world, Ticona was shown the birth of his daughter, deep in the mine.

Adapted from http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/09/18/chile.mine.baby/index.html September, 2010.