The Decision to Name

I mentioned in my last post about the decision to possibly name our sweet baby. Don't get me wrong, I totally get that it's slightly weird. I understand that it may not be typical. I understand you may think it doesn't change anything, but to me, it changes everything. Let me explain:

Just a few days after the miscarriage, I was getting so tired of referring to my baby as "it". This hadn't bothered me in the weeks I was pregnant as I knew I would be finding out soon what we would be having. Well, quickly thereafter, it began to drive me insane. So many people reaching out to us, even those with their own babies in heaven, would refer to their he or she. I just hated it. It's completely a personal opinion. For me, it's been a huge part of my healing (not that you ever heal from something like this, but the wound hurts a little less).

With this new annoyance, I had the fleeting thought of naming the baby. I had purchased an adorable picture frame when we first found out we were pregnant and I was ecstatic to put an ultrasound picture in there soon! Well, that wasn't going to be happening. At first, I figured I would just use it "next time". Now, that thought makes me so sad. I had wanted that picture frame for this baby, not another one. From that moment, I knew I needed a name. However, I was still in my own mind enough to know it was kinda weird. I had not really heard of anyone doing this (until I googled it)! And even then, it seemed like it was for people who miscarried much later on in the pregnancy. I thought I was being dramatic and let the thought pass. It creeped into my mind a few times but I decided I needed to wait until I wasn't so sad and see if it actually made sense.

Well, as time went on (and by time, I mean a couple of days), I couldn't push that thought out of my mind. I decided it wasn't AS weird anymore, and it didn't matter what other people did. I also knew I didn't want to go around telling people I had a baby and referring to its name all the time, however, for my heart to heal a little, it helped to have a name. I decided I would bring it up to Derrick. However, still acknowledging it was slightly strange, I also decided I should have an idea of what I was wanting the name to be. I couldn't really think of anything. I wanted it to be gender-neutral, obviously. I decided to just wait and think about it some more. The next night, I was lying in bed, not even thinking about this decision, and all of a sudden a name came to me. It was not a name I had ever imagined naming one of my babies. Honestly, it wasn't even a name I loved. Until now that is. I thought it was kind of weird, but in my heart, I knew that was the name I wanted for our baby. Now to convince Derrick :)

The next day, I decided to mention it to Derrick, to get his reaction. Of course, he was super supportive and told me we could do whatever we needed to if it helped me. At this point, I was glad I had thought on the name a little, or he would have named the baby something strange :) Of course, my mind had already been made up, but I wanted Derrick on board. I told him the name and he was actually okay with it. We decided to look it up to see what it meant. I'm also not sure why this occurred to me, as I'm not one to care what names mean. Well, after looking it up, tears streamed down my face for about 5 minutes, and every time I think about it, I have the same reaction. The name we chose for our baby means "God's gracious gift". That baby was a gift and we were so blessed to experience the short time that we did. We will never get to know our baby on this Earth, but I completely believe that babies have souls at conception and when I get to Heaven, I want to call my baby by name. And I will.

Now, that sweet picture frame I bought for this baby will no longer sit in a closet waiting to be used. I'm going to create a little note and place it in the frame. It will forever be our memento of our first little one, Jessie Holmes, God's gracious gift to us.