Of Babies and Signs by Konnie Enos

 

My daughter recently posted a link to a post on Love What Matters. I read it then followed links at the bottom to other posts by the same woman. One link was about her fourth pregnancy and her concern about whether or not she would have twins. At this point, she had already given birth to four girls (her three previous pregnancies, one set of twins) and had adopted a young boy.

She had an early ultrasound to assure her it was only one. The ultrasound staff gave both blue and pink hats to expectant parents. When it came time to give her these hats, they couldn’t find a pink one.

The staff member said it was a sign it’d be a boy because lacking one color had never happened before. With four girls, she didn’t think she could have a boy. She mentioned this to no one until after her baby, a boy, was born. (You can read her story here: Love WhatMatters )

This all reminded me of something that happened to us.

Just after we got married, Jerry and I started discussing names for our future children. I started making a list of names we agreed on. In no time we had five names, all for girls. I insisted we needed names for boys too.

Over the next three or four months we eventually agreed upon five boy names. By then we were already expecting baby number one so I pulled out the list and asked Jerry which names we should consider for this first baby.

The first name on our list was the first one he’d put forward, it was the name he wanted to name his daughter. I agreed, our oldest daughter would be Clarissa. (There is another story about how my father confirmed our oldest daughter would be Clarissa). I then said I wanted to name my son Royce. Jerry refused. We compromised. Our first son would be Anthony, but I insisted our second son would be Royce. From this point forward I was adamant I would have two boys.

 The next time we learned we were expecting, I pulled out the list and said we needed to pick a girl’s name for our second child, just in case this time it wasn’t a boy. Jerry picked the name he liked and I, again, had no reason to oppose him. So our second child would be either Kristina or Anthony. We had Kristina.

When I got pregnant a third time this repeated though both my third and fourth pregnancies ended in miscarriage. When I got pregnant a fifth time we waited until I was in my second trimester to again check the list. We only needed a girl's name. I had reasons to pick Melinda and Jerry did not oppose me. We had Melinda.

My sixth and seventh pregnancies ended before we could consider which name we would use if we had yet another girl.

Then we got pregnant for the eighth time. We again pulled out the list but we only had two girls’ names left and could not agree which one we would use if we had another girl. I finally felt I would wait until I saw our daughter before deciding. It was never an issue. We had Anthony.

When I shortly thereafter got pregnant yet again I didn’t even pull out the list, preferring to wait until I knew we were past the first trimester. Since it was unclear when I conceived they scheduled an ultrasound at which they established I was already in my second trimester and we were indeed expecting a boy. We never had to pull the list out because we already knew I would name our second son Royce.

I did, however, look for the list to refresh my memory on what names were on it.

Through at least six moves and about a decade, I had always been able to find it. This time I could not. I have not seen it since we discussed what we would name our fourth child if we had another girl.

  To this day I can still remember the names I would have given two more girls, but I cannot tell you the remaining three boy names. And though I did conceive one more time, I miscarried long before we would have taken the time to discuss possible names.

Somehow the missing list was the biggest message we could have. There would be no more kids in our family.

Well, until our grandkids came along. So far we have one beautiful granddaughter and another granddaughter is expected in October, just in time for my daughter’s 30th birthday.

Smile. Make the day a brighter day.