E is for….. {The Ordinary Moments #25}

Names, does it get more ordinary than a name? Than the hundreds of times a day I must say the names of my Little Ladies whether that is telling them just how much I love them with a huge squeeze or a whisper in their ear like it’s our own little secret, letting them know dinner is ready and hearing the stampede from wherever they are in the house at the mere prospect of food, or indeed with a more stern voice that I can in fact see the mischief they are getting up to even though I am in another room as they wonder just how on earth I always seem to keep an eye on them. This isn’t to mention the many many more times I actually hear their names, from other people, friends, family and now from each other, it is an ordinary moment which never gets old.

A few months ago I wrote here about not using their real names on this blog and instead opting for initials. I thought about it so much and even then had mostly made the decision to start using them. Yet here I am so many months later having not taken that step. I haven’t changed my mind I just haven’t found the right words, the right time to write it down. However every time I publish a post or have lovely comments and I see their initials it doesn’t feel quite right, quite like them. I also love hearing names and how people make that huge life decision and so here I am sharing ours.

I will start by saying I don’t actually like my own name, my name is Laura and whilst there is nothing wrong with it I guess I just find it mundane, a little dull and growing up I was, and still am, always among lots of other Laura’s. In fact I have so many friends with the same name that my Little Lady always sounds so very formal as she uses their full names!

From the very first moment I took that test, the one that would shape and change the rest of my life. Just 6 weeks after moving into our new house, totally convinced I was pregnant but having had a negative result a week or so before and taking it whilst the Mr was working a night shift. Those two not so little and not so faint lines that appeared immediately and I stood in the bathroom my heart racing just saying oh my god over and over again aloud in a room, a house all by myself. From that very moment, that night that I spent tossing and turning, smiling from ear to ear, thinking of the future and so excited for the next day to tell this person that he was going to be a dad, to wait in anticipation until not only had he finished work but got some sleep too. That was the longest 18 hours ever. But from that moment all I could think of was this baby, this life inside of me that I now had the responsibility for naming. And not only naming but agreeing on the name, now that isn’t something to be taken lightly either.

Being our first we must have spent so much time talking about names, using every app, name book and all around me there seemed to be a new meaning to every name I heard or I read. Suddenly there was a big question mark that perhaps this was our baby’s name, perhaps we would spend every day for the rest of our lives saying this name. I would fill with excitement that I had found a great name and thinking of all those special moments that I didn’t even know existed yet and imagine the child inside me at that very moment – only for it to be vetoed by the husband before I am sure it had chance to even travel through the ear to the brain, a decision even faster than the speed of sound!

We also didn’t find out her gender, which of course meant we had to settle on both a boys and a girls name. For some reason I was super convinced she was a boy, so convinced in fact that Eddy and I made a deal, I really really liked a boys name that he wasn’t overly confident on so he got to choose the girls name – by choose I mean of course we agreed but it was definitely one that he had championed from the start.

Due to my opinions on my own name and the popularity I was inclined to choose less popular names, obviously you learn that most people are thinking that way and in actual fact what was more unique 5 years ago is much more popular now. We eventually agreed on two names for boys and two for girls including middle names, both mine and Eddy’s middle names seemed the obvious choice. We decided that we would leave it till the moment this baby was born, the moment we clapped eyes on this tiny little human growing inside of me to see if either name would suit them better, if they somehow come out looking like they have this identity. We had been told that this was a safe bet, and a good idea although to be honest we had our favourites and I don’t think it would have gone any other way.

Then came the moment, 37 weeks and 4 days of pregnancy and 31 hours of induced labour, brought the moment that our first Little Lady came into the world in all her drama, the consultant lifting her up and over for the Mr to see and tell me through tear stained eyes and with a frog in his throat “it’s a girl, we have a girl, we have a daughter”. After I had indeed asked if they were sure it wasn’t a boy the lovely midwife that had taken care of me, reassured me through it all, held my hand when I was scared, asked does this little one have a name?

I remember looking at Eddy in an almost expecting manner. How was I supposed to think that this wonderful innocently beautiful little baby that had come screaming into my arms looked anything more than absolutely perfect. In the nicest possible way I didn’t care, I had everything I had wanted and prayed for in that very moment and her name seemed like it would be the final piece of that puzzle, that the name would make her, would complete her and not the other way around. We just looked at each other and smiled. “It’s that one isn’t it?” was enough of a conversation and those words were uttered, that name that has almost everything in the entire world wrapped up and entwined in it now was spoken for the very first time; in that very room; to that very midwife.

E is for Eva

It feels so strange yet so natural and almost freeing to write that down.

E is for Eva

Our Eva Dee, Little Dee, Little Dot, Baby, Baby Girl, Vava (R’s attempt that I fear might just stick).

Mostly. Just Eva. So much meaning in three little letters.

xx

Linking with Katie Mummy Daddy Me for the Ordinary Moments

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