"My Story..." Monday: Her Name

I always think it's odd when parents don't have a name picked out for their child. Yes, I realize it's a major decision and it takes time to pick "just the right one". And, yes, I also realize that sometimes mom and dad just can't seem to agree on the best name. I'm also well aware that some people like to "wait and see their baby" to decide. (For the record, this is a little odd to me just because brand-new newborns bear precious little resemblance to the babies they will become but, whatever...)

Anyway, it has always seemed to me that you should have a name ready when your baby comes. I can't remember at what exact point we settled on our "girl's name" and "boy's name" for our first child, but I know for a fact that that entire last month of my pregnancy I knew exactly what we would name our baby as soon as we found out the gender at birth.

With this baby who just arrived in the wee hours of Christmas Eve? It was a tad different. Born almost four months early, she shocked us both with her early arrival. Who truly thinks they have to have a name all settled upon by 24 weeks into the pregnancy? We sure didn't. Yeah, yeah, we had definitely "talked names" and kicked around some ideas. There were some true front-runners. As I mentioned earlier, I had also declared upon realizing our baby would arrive on Christmas Eve that, should we have a girl, I wanted her middle name to be Noelle. And it is. My husband did not deny me that...

What's interesting is that, while I was being asked, "Do you have a name for her?" in the OR, my husband was being asked the exact same question en route to the NICU.

Even more interesting? We both answered the question without hesitation. And we both gave the exact same name.

We hadn't discussed it. Truly, we had had scarier and more pressing things on our minds the last couple of days. But, somehow, we both just knew that this little girl was to be our C. (Side note- Want to know something odd and kind of eerie? The NICU nurses at our particular hospital reported to us that, in their opinion, the worst name to give your micropreemie daughter is "Miracle"... none of them had ever had a baby given that name survive... strange, eh?)

And thus began our journey as the parents of a micropreemie. The roller coaster was just getting started.

**I only use initials throughout my blog, but if you're particularly curious about C's name, I will tell you this much.... we shot a commercial and her name is in it. You can see some of the extra footage from that commercial in my right side-bar. In it, I say her name. ;)