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Parents of lost babies and potential of all kinds: come here to share the technicolour, the vividness, the despair, the heart-broken-open, the compassion we learn for others, having been through this mess — and see it reflected back at you, acknowledged and understood.

Thanks to photographer Xin Li and to artist Stephanie Sicore for their respective illustrations and photos.

for one and all > How did you choose your child's name?

I was thinking about this today, for no real reason beyond curiosity.

We had Gabriel's name chosen well in advance of his birth. In fact, we chose 4 girl names and 4 boy names while we were engaged, because we wanted 4 kids (excuse me one moment while I roll around on the floor laughing at that). We had them ranked, in order for years.

The number one girl name was Gwendolyn Rose, the number one boy name was Gabriel Ross.

Ross was after a dear, dear friend to me (and to a lesser extent to my husband) who passed away in 2006. He was a mentor, a friend, a teacher and almost a second father. I deeply respected and loved him and the last thing I told him was that we wanted to name our first son for him. Due to my husband's last name, Ross was a very odd first name and we didn't want our child to feel like he had to live up to some person he'd never met. So we thought that Gabriel would be a nice first name - fitting, as Gabriel was the messenger angel.

So it was. The only time I thought Gabriel might not be a girl was when I was about 6 weeks pregnant, bored in a meeting and doodling the names. Gwendolyn just felt wrong, wrong, wrong. And sure enough, he was a boy and we slowly got adjusted to the idea and by the time we had our big ultrasound confirm boy beyond shadow of a doubt, we were calling him Gabe all the time (but only between us, as we were keeping the sex secret - oh those innocent and naive days when the surprise wasn't living or dying, but the sex of the baby). So there was never any question that it would be his name when he was born. He was Gabriel. Even if I had wanted to save his name or something, it was too late, because it was his.

And now I won't use Gwendolyn anymore (a longtime favorite girl's name). It was his other name and it feels wrong. And honestly, ALL the other boy names we'd chosen feel wrong too, so we've fairly well thrown them all out and started fresh.

We think we'll use Ross or Rose again as middle names, both for Ross and now also for Gabe, should we be lucky enough to have children.
February 23, 2010 | Unregistered Commentereliza
We named our daughter Juliet. We have been blessed to have two other girls. I always loved the name Juliet, but ultimately decided not to use it with my other girls because I feared the tragic connotations. I was afraid that I would be "jinxing" them if we used this name.

When we went to the hospital on the day after Christmas and an ultrasound showed that all of the fluid around my baby was gone, we were put in the position of thinking about names. We didn't even know if we were having a boy or girl (ha-- we wanted it to be a surprise. We got a surprise, all right). Immediately, I thought of Juliet for a girl. The fact that our baby was coming and we knew she'd only live the shortest of lives made the tragic connotations of the name perfectly fitting.

Eliza, Gabriel Ross is a lovely name.
February 23, 2010 | Unregistered Commenterscm
We had different names picked out when I was pregnant with my Gabriel (Flora for a girl; Michael or Nathaniel for a boy — we were still squabbling over it). We decided we didn't want to use any of those names for our stillborn child. We reviewed a couple of baby books while we were in the hospital waiting to deliver. We picked Gabriel (gift of God) for a boy and... I don't remember the girl's name, possibly Dolores (sadness) or Angela (angel).

If we were to have another child (I have two living daughters, Flora and Kate), we would go with Michael James for a boy. I would want to name a daughter either Gabrielle Frances or Danielle... something. We haven't committed fully to even trying again let alone picking names.

I think all these names are lovely too.
February 23, 2010 | Unregistered Commenterred pen mama
We were only ever able to agree on a "girls" name (though being a type of tree it is fairly neutral). We didn't find out the sex until he was born. But, we decided after we knew his heart had stopped inside me that the only name we could agree on would be the name for this baby, male or female. It's not quite been three weeks and I still have a hard time calling him by his name. He is mostly just "our baby."
February 23, 2010 | Unregistered CommenterSadkitty
Oh, Sadkitty, I'm so sorry you had to join us here. It's a terrible loss but this community is very supportive, I hope you get some comfort here.

Sometimes I'm sad about my son's name because he wouldn't have it if he had lived. The story behind part of it gives me a lot of peace though, so mostly I am content with it.

We decided not to discuss names until we knew the sex. Because we found out what was wrong during that ultrasound we had no list and only a few days to decide. I did not want my baby to die without a name. My husband asked me one day if there were any I liked and I told him I had always liked Aiden. I didn't know it at the time but Aiden was the most popular boy's name in 2009. My husband and I like somewhat unique names so we would not normally have chosen that one. I like Aiden in this case because it means fire or flame and our boy has such a brief, bright life.

It wasn't until after Aiden had died and was born (that order always hurts me) that we agreed on a middle name. One day I was standing at our kitchen window staring into space and this cute little Carolina wren perched on the fence and looked at me. I swear I felt my son in that moment, like he had sent the bird to cheer me up. A few days later I was reading another baby loss blog and the mother had given her daughter the middle name Wren. I asked my husband what he thought of it and we decided it was perfect because he was small, we are very nature oriented, and we will always think of him when we see a Wren. Again, I never would have named a living boy that for fear of teasing, but it seemed to fit and I was very happy with it. My brother and sister in law named one of their girls after one of the twins they lost. I don't think I can do that - like scm, I am afraid of "jinxing" a future child (if there is one).
February 23, 2010 | Unregistered Commenterjen
Everyone's stories are so wonderful and meaningful. Thanks so much for sharing them. We named my first son 'Samuel' as it meant "God Listens" since we conceived him after 4 years of IF and a very high-risk pregnancy. With our twins, we knew our girl would be Abigail (Abby) as my dh had always loved this name. I tend to like more unusual girl names, but knew how much this meant to dh. We still have not given her a middle name, but I'm leaning toward 'Abigail Hope'.

One of my deepest, deepest regrets was losing our little boy before we had completely settled on his name. I always called them 'the twins', lumping them together in verbal convenience. We both loved the name William and the nickname Will. But when we tested it out with family, no one seemed too enthusiastic. We had chosen William Scott for my dh's brother. We hemmed and hawed over other boy choices. When he died, I we decided on the way home from the hospital that he was always meant to be William Scott and it didn't matter much what anyone else thought anyway.

I hate that I didn't get to say "my Will' until he died. It haunts me.
February 23, 2010 | Unregistered CommenterEve
It makes me wistful reading these stories.
I so wish we had chosen a name.

D didn't want to find out the sex of the baby once it had died, and I wasn't brave enough to ask whether I could find out on my own. He said that it would wreck the names we'd chosen for future children, and he didn't want to name this one. I would have liked to choose one of the names we'd discounted for practical reasons as, hell, the practical reasons don't count any more. But I can't do it without him; it would feel too wrong.

Sadkitty, I'm so, so sorry that you've lost your baby. I usually just say 'our baby' too.

Jen - I had an ex called Aidan (diff spelling but same name obviously) and although we were terribly badly suited he was a lovely guy and I always loved the name. If it wasn't for the 'ex' thing it would have been on my list.

Eve, I don't know what to say to that. I'm so sorry that you hurt so much :(
February 23, 2010 | Unregistered CommenterB
B, I thought about you as soon as I saw this post. I was kind of hoping you wouldn't read it because I know this bothers you. There is something I have thought about and wasn't sure if it would help you or not. With both of my pregnancies, the baby had a nickname before I knew the sex. I called my daughter cricket and I called Aiden an alligator. Did you have a nickname while you were pregnant? Would it help you to use that or think of one? I know you don't want to name your baby without your husband, but the nicknames are really only the mother's. Maybe this would help you remember your baby without hurting your husband? I don't want to intrude on such a private decision but I know you are sad about this, I keep trying to think of something to make it better.

Eve - I know what you mean. It felt so terrible to talk about the death of my baby before he even had a name.
February 23, 2010 | Unregistered Commenterjen
I'm sorry, B and Eve. I had forgotten your stories and how this is has been a hurtful issue for you both. I was only thinking about how nobody ever asks about Gabe's name and where it came from, and it was something so important to us. . . I thought other moms might like to share.

My first planned pregnancy was Chickadee - that was the nickname. To this day, I still call that baby Chickadee.
February 23, 2010 | Unregistered Commentereliza
scm - Juliet is beautiful and sad and a lovely choice.

jen - I love the meaning within Aiden Wren. That is so lovely.

rpm - Obviously, I think Gabriel is a beautiful name, but the story behind your choice is moving.

Sadkitty - welcome seems like the wrong thing to say, but welcome, anyhow.
February 23, 2010 | Unregistered Commentereliza
No no no, I loved reading the stories. It makes me sad, but... hell. So does everything else. Honestly, don't anyone feel bad for this. And I'm always glad to know that other people have done something that I wish I could have done.

Jen, that's another of my regrets, that I didn't ever give the baby a nickname. (Another reason, too, that I suspect somewhere deep in my psyche I knew that this baby wasn't going to be one I got to meet.) It's one of those things people do, while they're pregnant, and yet... I didn't. I don't even know why. it kind of feels too late to do so now. (and just in case; don't feel bad for suggesting that; you couldn't possibly know all that! it doesn't particularly bother me. i have so many regrets, there isn't one that's overwhelming. they are just the background to my life, these days)

having said all that... i kind of associate this child with the snow, which I've blogged about before. Hmmm. Snowflake.

I've been thinking of getting a tattoo of a snowflake to represent this baby.

I need to have a think about all that.

Thanks Jen, and thanks Eliza too.
February 23, 2010 | Unregistered CommenterB
I have a tattoo of the chickie that was my ticker-marker for Chickadee's pregnancy - it's on my left wrist, about the size of a nickel. Used it for Gabe's pregnancy too, with a different background (it's on my blog on the right-hand side, the little picture - with the dates of all the pregnancies under it - My Little Chickies).

I think a snowflake would be lovely, B.
February 23, 2010 | Unregistered Commentereliza
No pain in reading this post for me that isn't already there, Eliza. I love, love, love to be asked questions about my twins. In my real world, I know people willl stop asking about Will and forget about him. What a gift to get to frolick in the memory of him here.

B, my dh and I are going to get tattoos for Will (and if you knew us, you'd laugh yourself sick b/c we are the uncoolest people on earth). I think I'm going to get mine curling around the outer top of my foot. It may be a painful place, but I imagine it's bearable compared to babyloss. My dh is going to get his underneath his wedding ring.
February 23, 2010 | Unregistered CommenterEve
Jen, Wren is my 5 year-old son's middle name. I love bird names.
February 23, 2010 | Unregistered CommenterSadkitty
We were always leaning towards Matilda but didn't decide for sure until she was delivered. When we named her we still thought she was going to live. I had a thought 'what if she doesn't make it - do we still want to use that name' but I didn't say it out loud to DH and then thought 'yes, of course we'd still want to call her that'.

We called her 'Nut' in utero and it was actually a hard habit to break after she was born. We'd catch each other calling her 'Nut' instead of Matilda.

DH always imagined we'd call her 'Tilly' most of the time and a couple of our friends actually send cards using that rather than Matilda which made me cry. DH still refers to her as Tilly sometimes. I always call her Matilda.
February 23, 2010 | Unregistered CommenterMaddie
We didn't give Juniper a middle name.
February 23, 2010 | Unregistered CommenterSadkitty
We didn't name Devyn until after we found out he was sick.

My husband has a thing with having our children have the same initials as him. Our l/c has his initials. We agued about that, but I gave in that time because he really wanted our first to be named after him, but have an issue with naming a child after you. It was my compromise. I think they need their own identity. My hang-up I guess.

Anyhow, I knew inside that Devyn was a boy before I found out officially. I remember coming home from the ultrasound when we found out about his condition, and saying to my husband that he needed a name. I did not even at that point "officially" know he was a boy, just felt it. Devyn just stuck in my mind. Even if i had been wrong it would have been perfectly fine for a girl.

What makes me cry is that my family never refers to him at all, let alone by name. My husband, and I are the only ones who call his name. It's strange how saying it's name fills me with love and aches my heart at the same time.
February 24, 2010 | Unregistered CommenterPaula
thank you eliza. i hope you're doing ok.

Eve, i think we realise now that a lot of things are bearable compared to this. i would laugh to think how traumatised i sometimes used to get over the stupidest things. I hope you are happy with the tatts when you get them.

Matilda is a beautiful name Maddie, and goes with your name beautifully too (I've meant to say that for ages).

And Devyn is a lovely name, Paula.
February 25, 2010 | Unregistered CommenterB
I had always wanted to call my baby Max. But when we recieved a diagnosis in utero at 23 weeks of a severe heart defect and told it was unlikely that he would survive, I wanted a name with meaning, one that would give him some fight. So we choose Connor which means strong willed. There was hope when he was born, then he was unable to be stabilised and lost his fight at 25 hours old. Our other favourite name was Zachary, which means belongs to god. I was against using it after the diagnosis because he was not gods child to keep, he was mine. I felt that naming him Zachary would jinx his chances of survival. Sounds silly but that was how my mind functioned at the time, and I just wanted to give him every chance possible at surviving.

You have all choosen lovely names for your babys, and beautiful reasons behind your choices.
February 26, 2010 | Unregistered CommenterCindy
We had other names picked out for our baby until we found out he had trisomy 18. We found out at our first ultrasound (19 weeks), not the condition, but that there were so many things about him that were "incompatible with life." Once we found out all the issues we asked to know the sex, too, because we figured we knew everything else about him... We almost immediately and unanimously named him Emmanuel. It means "God is with us." We were so convinced that God was in our pain with us, even crying with us, it was such a comfort. We also knew that God was with our baby, he wasn't alone in there and that was a HUGE comfort. Our baby lived another five and a half weeks.

Sadkitty, I know what you mean about using a name. I mostly just call him "Baby" or "our baby" when I think about him because this is how I addressed him when I spoke to him, even after we picked out a name. It's almost more personal for me because that's my (horribly unoriginal) nickname for him.
February 26, 2010 | Unregistered Commentercorrie
Welcome, Corrie. I'm sorry for your loss, especially in such a difficult way, but I'm glad you found your way here. I hope you find some solace in communion.

Emmanuel is a beautiful choice of names.
February 27, 2010 | Unregistered Commentereliza
This will be my first time on this on glow in the woods and I'm not sure how you "start" in this discussion board. I found babyloss blogs this evening for the first time since after Elizabeth was born and died (on Epiphany, Jan. 6, so almost two months ago now - that's hard to believe). I'm debating about blogging myself; my husband does but doesn't update frequently right now. We found out our daughter was anancephalic- yet another condition that is "not compatible with life" - at our 20 week ultrasound. It's also when we found out that she was a she. We had talked about names early in the pregnancy and then thought we had a long time to make the decision so weren't in any great rush until the week after Christmas when we realized that we would be saying hello much sooner than we expected and bidding a tearful goodbye immediately after. It wasn't exactly immediately, we and our family were able to spend five precious hours with our tiny little girl before her heart stopped beating.

As we were going to sleep the night after we found out what we would soon be facing, my husband and I felt the need to have a name to go with the baby still growing inside of me. We stayed up long into the night and went to sleep having decided on Elizabeth Joy. The Elizabeth was my husband's late great grandmother's name and a name I always loved for a girl and the one I was rooting for when we first discussed names over the summer. And Joy was because all day even as we came to grips with what was happening, my husband kept talking about all of the joy that she brought, and on our best days still brings, to our lives.

We have been married nine years this July and waited until last summer to start trying to get pregnant. We were able to conceive quickly and I had a dream pregnancy - no morning sickness or nausea to speak of. Because we were having a new baby and sick of living in our too-small apartment, we found a great house and took the leap of faith to buy it. We felt closer to each other than ever before dreaming about our child and our growing family. All of this was pure Joy and needed to be in her name.

I loved reading all of the other names you chose for your precious children and think that a nickname or a symbol is special as well. I'm so glad that I found this question as my entry into this community because I love it when people ask me about her name.
February 27, 2010 | Unregistered CommenterSheena
Hi Sheena.

Elizabeth is a beautiful name (and I don't say that solely because I share it). And Joy is a wonderful choice. I'm sorry for her early arrival and departure, but glad to hear that you had so much time with her and that your family had time with her as well.

I'm sad to say welcome, but you are not alone here.
March 1, 2010 | Unregistered Commentereliza