I can’t remember the exact moment me and my husband Jason decided we wanted the sex of our first child to be a surprise. With friends and family heavily weighing in about our decision, I do remember feeling great relief though that we both felt so strongly about it.
To my friends’ and family’s credit they were simply surprised that I wanted to be surprised. After all, I still shake the presents under the Christmas tree with my name on them!
While I was pregnant I got used to the same four questions: “How are you feeling? Do you know what you’re having? Have you picked out names? Are you sharing the names?”
I generally felt wonderful throughout my pregnancy and we were firm in that we didn’t want to know what we were having. But the name questions, they felt invasive to me.
For starters we hadn’t yet agreed on names, especially for a boy. We also didn’t want to hear people’s opinions on the names we had chosen. Say we were considering the name Lonnie, someone might have said “Ugh, I had an Uncle Lonnie who had an LSD habit.” Right. That would really make me want to name my kid Lonnie then.
I did exactly that to a friend of mine who was due a few months before me. She and her husband also wanted to be surprised but shared the names they had picked. Matthew and Reese. I made a comment then how Matthew seemed like an odd choice since the couple had a close friend named Matt. She fell silent after I said that, and well, could I really blame her? I had just done to her what I was trying to avoid having done to me!
But the plain truth was that we believed that our child would bring it’s own name into the world. Or we at least wanted to meet this little person inside of me before saying ‘yes, he is a Harry,’ or ‘yes, she is a Sally.’ That’s not to say though that we didn’t have some front runners, we did.
In talking about names we knew we didn’t want our baby’s name to be as common as my husband’s name, Jason or as different as my name, Reedu, but some place in between.
My brother-in-law suggested we name the baby 'Pomegranate.'
I was more than half way through my pregnancy when we were thousands of feet in the air on a Virgin America flight out to San Fransisco to see my brother get married. I was listening to NPR and the reporter’s name was Milo Miles. I leaned across the isle to where Jason was sitting (a great compromise by the way for two people who hate the middle seat), and said, “What do you think of the name Milo?” He flashed a big grin at me and his blue eyes beamed the answer back. It was the first male name we had agreed on.
I went into labor on a Sunday and gave birth on Monday. The Friday before Jason had presented me with another name that I liked a lot. We went into the delivery room with two strong contenders, but still open to the fact that the baby would bring it’s own name.
In the moments after our son was born there was a ton of commotion and excitement in the room. My mom was bouncing around like a kid in a candy shop while my husband was crying with joy and my midwife Beverly was helping me get started with breastfeeding.
What seemed like a half hour passed before Beverly quipped, “So what’s this kid’s name?!”
Jason looked at me then, quite like the way he looked at me on the Virgin America flight out to California, and we agreed it would be Milo. Accept we would spell it M-y-l-o in honor of our moniker for one another, “my love.”
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How did you arrive at the name(s) of your baby? Did you share it with friends and family, why or why not? Please share with me, I’d love to hear!
I was just thinking about writing a post on names, so I’m going to hold off answering your question. Don’t be surprised if in a few days, you see my answer…or not…I’m one of those people with a lot of draft posts that never get published.
I think the story of Mylo’s name is adorable. I love that it worked out that you could spell it in the way of standing for My Love.
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Awesome… I look forward to reading it! ~Ree
I love the end ”my love”. Mylo is a very sweet name!
Our story is similar but I HAD to know the sex of the baby as soon as I could. HAD TO! You are very patient…
My husband is picky! We had names that just were not clicking. I saw the name “Caius” a few times and thought that it sounded strong. It was the first that we agreed on! It means rejoicer which I thought was very nice.
We spell it Kaias in reference to the Hawaiian name “Kaia”, meaning the sea. My hubby and I met while living in Hawaii and our son was “made in Hawaii”. We wanted to keep the spirit of those happy years together there alive through our son.
Some people hate it, some love it. If I was not doped up on morphine when they came with the birth certificate I would have spelled it “Kaius”. Anyway, he’s a happy guy and this unique name fits him.
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Hey! I love that your son was made in Hawaii and I just love his name it’s meaning. It sounds strong indeed! When you say some people hate it, you mean they actually tell you that? Ug. What’s wrong with people? I grew up with a
differentstrange name so it bothers me when people play the ignorant card when it comes to different names. ~ReeOh man, the kicker to this post made me teary. I love your little guy, hard. Here’s to hoping that Eli and My-my will be buddies for many years to come.
Katie! Oh they so will. Or at least I hope they will. If for some reason they have a falling out then they’ll have to get over it because their mama’s will be friends for years to come! See you soon, Ree
Here from ICLW. I love your son’s name, and the spelling of it. When I was pregnant with my twins, I decided to find out the sexes, but my husband wanted to stay in the dark. Two weeks before the ultrasound to find out, he decided we needed to pick four names, two boys, two girls so he wouldn’t get hints from me about the sexes. (He thought I would push more for certain names, and he’d be able to tell.) It was stressful to come up with the names, but when they were born we had two names to use for each. The first choices ended up being right for their personalities. Phew!!
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Hi! Thanks for coming by. I have a friend who just had her first baby (after two miscarriages) last month and she and her husband wanted to be surprised. During her last trimester she couldn’t stand it anymore so she opted to find out the sex but left it a surprise for her husband. Now what you did and what she did I would never be able to contain! Ever. Maybe that’s why I like the surprise because if I knew ALLLLL I would do is plan. Going by your blog now to learn your babies’ names. The suspense is killing me! ~Ree