We're still playing the name game...

After having spent 4 glorious days with the hubs at a resort akin to heaven (if I believed in such a place), and conversing casually over our daughters name, I am feeling no closer to a finally decision.

We've got 2 we're pretty set on. Which is better than none, but which does pose a problem when I'm only carrying one child. Not that I was hoping for twins, just that having 2 names and one child doesn't an easy decision make.

And many people have said things to the effect of "well just use one for the middle name and one for the first" or "use one and save the other for your next child" but, neither of these things works for me. First of all, we like both the names (the issue being really, that the one I prefer is not the one hubs prefers, and vice versa), and we don't feel either of them work as middle names. Not to mention we both want our choice as the first name. The next issue of course being, that I have NO idea if we'll ever have another child, and if we do, if that child will be a girl. So saving a name for this "maybe baby" isn't an option.

So here we are. We've got somewhere around 15 weeks (or 3.5 months which seems WAY too close) to figure this out. And like I've said, we'll enter the delivery room with both and come out with one. But I worry that one of us is always going to feel that we gave in, and that we didn't get to use the name we wanted most. I don't think it will plague either of us for life, but what if she comes out, looks at us, we look at each other, smile in that endorphine fueled love, and both say a different name. We'll be starting her off with an identity crisis, and what's worse, starting our first disagreement as parents with a freshly birthed child of only 7 minutes old.

Hopefully, it will just come to us. We'll just know. And hopefully we don't come up with any more names before then, to add fuel to this confusion fire. Hopefully.

I am starting this mommy thing off with a lot of hope, and not the dreamy "I hope my daughter will marry her prince charming" kind of hope but, that "holy ass I hope I can figure ANY of this out" kind of hope. The hope you have when your car starts sliding on the ice, barreling towards a busy intersection, and you're frantically searching your brain for the time your dad told you what to do in this event, HOPING you can remember it in time to save your life, or at least your car. So, I hope.

I also hope it doesn't come down to, what I've so often heard called Mommy Rank. Where I use the fact that I've just birthed this child, grown her 9 months, sacrificed my figure, my grace and my shame for the love of her, to get my way. I don't believe women have more say in the name or child bearing, simply because they are the ones designed to carry and birth the children. And it really bothers me when people assume this is fact.  I want mutual agreement. I want to feel like WE, as a team, we who created this child, have chosen to give her the name that will suit and carry her to greatness. We. Not me. Not I. Not because I am the mama. We. Because she is not mine, she is ours. She is only 50% me, and the other 50% deserves the opportunity to have her father love her the way he will.

So for now, I hope. We talk, and I hope. And in a few short months. we will know how this all plays out.

So, really, what's in a name anyway?

Oh you know, only everything.

I don't know why I am finding this so challenging, or why I am letting it stress me out...but we just cannot find a name that we both love the same way. My dear husband has his picks, and I have mine, and never the two shall meet. We've settled on 1 name so far, but the fear is that we really are settling on it, so while it remains on this ever growing list, the shine has worn off. It's just not as sparkly as it was last week. Sigh.

I want something beautiful, interesting and fitting of our first child. My names tend to be a little more off the charts. And while I'm not into making names up like Rainshine Moonwalk, or completely massacring the spelling, like Jaxxsoun, just so it's unique, I am also not prepared for my daughter Sarah and her 3 BFF's Sara, Sera and Sarra to be playing in my house. It needs to be as unique as I know this little one is going to be. It needs to speak to me, and to her, and I guess since we're married and all, to my husband.

Husband on the other hand, has a slightly different view. We've discovered that 98% of the names he likes sit comfortably within the Top 50. Not so close to the Top 10 that we know any yet, but close enough to the Top that our daughter surely would have a few friends with the same name. And really, it's not that bad, and it could be worse. He likes popular names, he just does. And so what, I suppose you could say SO WHAT?

And you know, I don't really KNOW what. I just know that's not what I want. And so we're stumped. It's not that we hate every name the other likes, but we just aren't loving or feeling the other person's top picks. And I'm really in love with some, and I'm not truly sure if he feels the same about his. And so, I obsess and he gets hounded with list after list of potential names. And we, we get no closer to picking anything.

What's worse, We're not even trying to pick THE name, we're just trying to pick a FEW names, that we both agree on, that we can take into the delivery room with us, so she doesn't leave the hospital simply named Baby Girl X. Or worse, named something we picked during an oxytocit/exhaustion cocktail high, like Roxanol or Kadian, which are brand names for morphine.

I should probably let it go. But for some reason I feel like this is some huge, overwhelming responsibility on my part. Her name will help define her, and as much as I want to believe that the person makes the name, I just don't think that's true. I strongly feel my life and path would have been markedly different had my name been something else, something less unique, something boring that I didn't have to explain time and time again. If I hadn't spelled my name 1000000 times, and had to endure a number of ongoing jokes about it, I would be someone else. If I was just another Katie or Christine, things would have been different. And so I stress.

And I suppose this is the root of me and husbands issue. He's got a name like everyone else. A Matt or Paul or Joe kind of name. The kind the everyone's heard and no one's ever commented on. And this is where he stands in this name thing. Well not exactly there, but he isn't deviating far.

We'll find some middle ground, but for some reason, right now, at 23 weeks, it's torturing me. And I just need to let it go.

Maybe I'll go and find some ice cream or something.........