She Has A Name

After months of negotiations we have finally agreed on a name for Frostina.

Our methods this time around were very different than with my last pregnancy. With my son we had this idea that we didn't want to make the final name selection until after we met him properly. Our goal was to narrow the list down to 2 or 3 names and then choose based on what we could see of his personality after he was born. We didn't share our options or ideas with anyone because we wanted to do the big "name reveal" after we made our choice.

As we all know, things went horribly wrong with my last pregnancy at 36 weeks. Once we were told that he no longer had a heartbeat, everything happened quickly and in a blur. After he was born the midwives asked us what his name was. There was silence from both of us. He didn't have one yet, we had wanted to meet him first. We wanted to match his name to his little personality. Except that we would never know what his personality would be, because we were never going to be able to meet him properly. Because he was already gone and everything about him would always be a mystery.

I was devastated and embarrassed to have to tell them he didn't have a name yet. So they just called him baby boy and our last name. They said they could update things once we made a decision.

No one should ever have to choose a name for their dead baby... I'm just saying.

We agonized over the decision, but finally made our choice. Once we picked his name we then had to go about the business of telling people. I found this task so very difficult. Everytime I tried to say his name out loud my throat would close up and my eyes would fill with tears. In the end, we decided to email his name to family and friends because saying it was just too hard. Too hard because we never said it when he was alive. We never got to address him by his name when he was still with us. So in the beginning, his name was a source of pain.

We didn't want it to be like that this time. So we used a very different strategy. We both did a list of our favorites and then each eliminated names off the others list that we didn't like. When we got the list down to 15 or so we started "road testing" them for one day each.

It's amazing what doing a road test can do to a name. I found that some of the names I thought I would love just didn't feel right, even after only one day of using them. This process got us down to a final four. With the final four names we extended our road test to a week for each name. At the end of the fourth week, it was decision time. Luckily, we both agreed on what name felt best.

So that's it! Decision made! We've already started calling her this new name and she seems to like it. We haven't told the family just yet but plan to sometime very soon. Because I don't want the first time anyone hears it to be after something terrible has happened. I want to know that no matter what, she is her own person with her own name... a name that everyone already knows.

**I do feel slightly bad writing about name selection and then having to break the news that I'm not actually going to reveal it here. It's a bit mean I suppose, but this being an anonymous blog and all it wouldn't really work if I started talking in real names now would it? So for the purposes of this blog she will always be Frostina.

Sorry about that.