A girl

Last week it was confirmed that we were having another girl at an OB check up. I had thought many times before that this baby was a girl.  It felt a bit like my previous girl pregnancy, full of emotion and just many other weird things that seem to go along with a girl pregnancy and me.

As you may recall my one grandmother died this past July and it hit like a ton of bricks because it was loss followed by loss for me and out of any of my grandparents, she was the one whom of which I was closest. Just a few days prior to her death I had an inkling that I was pregnant and took a test and found out I was. But everything in my head was such a mess and I was just in grief it was hard to focus.

One day though, I blurted out that if this baby was a girl, that I really wanted to name it after my grandmother.  But to me that was just a thought, and though it was a nice one, I didn't think it would come to fruition.

Fast forward to November, where yet another grandmother died, this time Keith's maternal grandmother, it felt like something was lining up. I went to my monthly appointment at the OB to check on things and well, baby at the time wanted us to wait a bit longer to see boy or girl. So deflated I went home, knowing that he or she was healthy but nothing else.

And then December came, and I got another chance at one of my last OB appointments before I officially made the switch to my old midwife for a home birth.  I needed some extra reassurance this pregnancy due to the later miscarriage last time and so, I chose to do co-care with an OB. It meant more appointments, but also I think it helped me see that last time didn't define this pregnancy. I asked this time if we could find out if this was a boy or girl, and the OB said that we could take a look.  And girl it was.

And so it comes back to the name. I know most people think through names a lot, and I am one of those people with the distinction that I like Saint names to be part of my children's names.  I didn't have this as a protestant growing up and it feels like its one thing that maybe my kids will have that will help them to remind them that they are not alone in this life and they can ask their namesakes to pray for them.

Thinking about girl #2's name, made me think about girl #1's name. Girl #1 for us is Helena Perpetua. Oddly enough without me knowing it and it slipped dear husband's memory that on top of having saint namesakes, she also has a great grandmother she's shares a name with, Helen. Some providential naming happening or coincidental affinities to names at the least.

When approaching girl #2, Keith and I have agreed we want to honor our grandmothers that passed away this past year, and it just feels right to do so. This means that baby girl #2 would have two middle names, and I think that's kind of fun though maybe tricky legally.  A side note is that I have one more living grandmother, and as odd or maybe not odd, her first and middle name is a combination of the other two grandmothers names. So not that it was completely planned out to be so, but it seems to be lining up as so. The only thing is we feel its good for her to have part of her name be her own and so we aren't just going to take the two middles and make one be a first. Instead she will have our picked out first Saint name. So two legacy middle names (Saints as well) it is and it seems just about right.

Now, as to what they are, well, that you will have to wait for to find out...