What's In A Name?

I'm stealing this title from one of my friend's blog posts.  I've been thinking about her post about the struggles she had naming her son a lot recently.  It's something I'm still struggling with and I think in all honesty I'll never be happy either way.

We had been kicking names around from early on, but at one point decided to wait until we knew if we were having a boy or girl to really start being serious.  We found out on June 4th our baby was a girl and I went to the hospital at 2:30 am on June 15th.  So we didn't have very long to really start thinking about it.  We thought we had another 20 weeks.  We had a few favorites, but none we were attached to and none we had attached to her yet.  We had also pretty much decided we would have a top 2 or 3 list by the end and then decide when she was born thinking we'd know when we saw her.

All throughout our stay in the hospital I refused to think about a name.  Several nurses asked me as well as family and friends and I simply replied that we hadn't had that much time yet to consider it.  What I didn't say was that I couldn't name her at this point.  In my mind giving her a name while everything was happening and things were so touch and go meant I was giving up.  It meant that I was saying she wasn't going to make it so we needed to pick a name so we'd have something for her birth certificate and grave stone.  While I had trouble being positive at times, I still wanted everything to work out and to carry her long enough to give her a chance so I just couldn't think about names.  I couldn't think about delivering her and thus needing a name.

That morning when she was born it was all so overwhelming I (and Adam) couldn't think about it then either.  I had so many feelings and emotions swirling around and I couldn't focus.  Part of me wanted her to have a name.  But I also didn't want to just pick something out of the air at that moment.  It didn't seem fair to her.  Plus we'd been calling her our "baby girl" since we found out and that seemed fitting in a way.  We'd also been calling her "our little brownie" but that wasn't appropriate.  So when we had to make the decision that day of what to put on her birth certificate we went with "Baby Girl Browne."

As I said earlier, I don't think I'll be happy with either decision.  Because of my association of naming her meant I was giving up on her (very negative in other words), I don't think I'll be happy with any name we could pick.  At the same time, part of me feels she deserves a name.  I also have a lot of guilt because we'd been saying we'd know her name when we met her and that day a name didn't spring into mind when I saw her.  I'm sure part of that was the grief but I still feel like I've let her down somehow.

Everyone has been very supportive when I talk to them about my difficulty.  It shouldn't be this difficult and I hate that it is.  One friend suggested using a family name that we probably wouldn't want to use in the future.  I thought that was nice, but at the same time the devil's advocate part of me says, "Well that means you're giving her a throw away name.  She's not worth a name you'd want to use?"  Another friend suggested flipping a coin and if I wanted to flip it again after getting an answer I'd know deep down I really wanted the other.  Again, a nice idea.  I tried it today and no matter what side it landed on I wasn't happy and wanted to try again.  I guess deep down I'm still conflicted.

The perinatal grief counselor from the hospital called me last week to check in and see how we were doing.  One of the things we talked about was naming our daughter.  They still had her birth certificate at the hospital and she said they'd hold on to in for another couple weeks just in case we changed our mind and wanted to give her a name.  She said it's a lot easier for them to do it than to change our minds later and go through Frankfort.  Tomorrow will be one month since her birth so she'll be transported to Lexington Cemetery and buried by next week sometime.  That means we need to order her marker.  Again, if we're going to give her a name we need to do it before we order the marker.  In other words we have to make the decision by next week and it's just been weighing on me a lot recently because we have a deadline.

I went to lunch with one of my friends downtown today.  Since I was there anyway I decided to stop by the cemetery to see where she was going to be.  I thought maybe looking at the other markers might help me sort out what I wanted.  It's a beautiful cemetery and the section she'll be in has some pretty tress.  I got out and walked around looking at the different markers.  There were markers with names but there were also makers that said "Baby ____" or "Infant Son/Daughter of ______."  When I left I was still in turmoil.  One of the reasons I lean toward giving her a name is that I don't want anyone to think she was loved any less because she doesn't have a name.  I know logically, "Who cares what anyone else thinks, especially if they don't know us," but it's something that has come into my mind.  Everyone I've voiced this concern to has said that they didn't think anyone would think that, and they're right, it's just tugged at me.  When I talked to my mom she asked if I thought that when I walked by makers without a name or spots that didn't have makers.  I said no.  She said, "There's your answer."

In all honesty I don't think I'll ever be happy with either option.  Mostly I think that's because both options suck because it means we lost our baby girl.  But I know we need to make a decision and it will be another step towards acceptance.  I think that really is a lot of my difficulty.  I have reached the point now where the loss of my daughter is a part of my reality (I don't have to relive it every morning when I wake up), but making this decision is the final step in admitting it is truly real.  Instead of this abstract thought of a marker, we will actually be ordering it and it will be placed on her grave.

We've still got a few days, so we'll talk about it some more.  We'll make the decision when we have to and whatever it is, it will be the right one.  It doesn't matter what others think, we have to choose what we feel is best for us.  We know and she knows how much we love her and that's all that matters in the end, not if she has a specific name or not.