Gabriel

I recently wrote about the journey to Emerald’s name—what an odyssey it became because of how much I over-thought things and tried to please everybody; what stress and no little amount of hurt feelings it caused.

In the end, Michael and I picked the name Emerald for our daughter, which both of us adored, but the whole experience had burned me, turning me off to the process. When we found out that we were expecting our second child, I honestly wanted to tell someone else to do it—I didn’t want to deal with it at all.

Lucky for me, I had someone that I could push the responsibility off on and trust to make a great decision =D My dear husband had something that I could never again have—an untarnished view of names. He didn’t care how popular a name was, what style it fell into, or it’s social or literal meaning. He heard names and was able to love them or hate them on the sound and feel alone. I am still quite jealous of this ability of his, though I am getting better at embracing the names that speak to me instead of over-analyzing it.

Since this pregnancy was as different as night and day with my previous pregnancy, I had no troubles at all—no sickness, no excessive fatigue, no hormonal sobbing in response to every word out of Michael’s mouth—so I was able to calmly and logically explain to him that I wanted him to make the ultimate decision and choose the name for our child. After some thought, we decided that we would not discuss it with anyone else nor reveal the final choice until the baby was born so as to prevent unwanted critique to mar our experience once again.

So determined were we that we would keep the name a secret that I convinced Michael that he alone would know the gender of the baby so that I would not be able to reveal our pick before it was time. We both knew that I am a lousy secret keeper.

At first, we would openly discuss names together and I was privy to all of Michael’s thoughts on the subject. Since he was the decider, it took all the pressure off of me so that I could just study and enjoy the name books. Early on, we discussed our reserved boy’s name—Benjamin Reilly—but Michael was uncertain if we would have more children in the future that would inherit his family name, Lynn, if we decided to forgo it this time. Reluctantly, we shelved Benjamin Reilly once again.

Michael and I initially agreed quite readily on names. He liked Eve for a girl and Lex for a boy, so we compromised on Eve Lynn Clementine and Alexander Lynn. For several months, we were content with our choices and discontinued discussions. But of course, I still thought about it.

Even without knowing the gender, I had strong suspicions about the baby I carried. I knew in my heart that the little one I carried was a boy, what I had been hoping and praying for. Old wives’ tales supported my theory, since the pregnancy was in every way different from the one with Emerald. So while I was researching both genders, I found myself drawn toward boy names.

One day, I came across the thought that since Michael’s name was that of an archangel, it might be a neat concept to give our baby their own angelic name. I was forever making lists at that time anyway since I find lists soothing and lots of fun, so I began a new one.

Angel was my first thought, but because of the vampire show Michael favored, I was turned away from that one. Plus, expectation names like that cause opposite effects—a common accepted ideal among the naming community--meaning that if you name your son Angel, he is going to be a mega-super brat.

I really liked the name Raphael—it means “God Has Healed”, and was the healer archangel, which appealed to the aspiring physician in me. Raphael was super cute but completely without good nickname (I have since solved that dilemma by discovering the diminutive Raz, which means “secret” in Hebrew), and had a very noticeable Ninja Turtle association that Michael would never be able to overlook.

Forgive me, but Uriel could not be in the running, because if you can hear it and NOT think “urinal” or “pee-pee”, you are a better person than I am (at least a more mature one). Uriel meant “God is My Light”, another great message, but I couldn’t overcome my first negative impression of then name.

The last name was one that I had read again and again…and hated. That’s not really fair—I had no problem (though no particular draw, either) to the name itself, but rather to its unavoidable nickname. Gabe, to me, was wildly unattractive and I couldn’t stand it. But as I read the name—“Gabriel”—again in my Baby Name Wizard (best book ever), I found it made me glow with happiness and good feelings.

When I brought it up to Michael, he lit up as well, liking the idea of having a little Gabriel. I still wasn’t crazy about the nickname Gabe, but I had discovered another pet name that I responded to much better—Gaby Baby. Just hearing it felt like a great big hug of cheerfulness.

An aside: that would be pronounced gay-bee; not to be confused with the female Gabrielle/Gabriela’s common pet form, Gabby, which is pronounced gab-ee.

Back again: around this time, it became painfully obvious that Michael could no longer trust me to keep “the” name a secret as we had originally agreed. I was around 5 months pregnant and bursting to tell my mom, sister, neighbor, dog, and stranger on the street every thought that was crossing my mind. What can I say, I’m an excitable little thing. In order to protect our agreement, I consented to be 100% locked out of future discussions of the child’s name. From here on out, it would be Michael—and Michael alone—that would make that call.

Sure, it was a little bothersome—it made me antsy to not be getting a say. But it had many perks, like being able to honestly tell someone when they asked that no, I didn’t know what Michael was thinking. In a way, I could share that frustration with them, but it made me happy to know that the first and greatest gift we would give to our child would come directly from Mike.

At 6 months, I had a little accident. I worked for a pet store throughout my pregnancy, which was relatively stress-free and easy as I grew. One night, however, I was not paying attention and I tripped over a box lying on the floor (as well as my massive feet) and landed smack on my stomach. At first I was just a little dazed and shaken up, but all right…after a while, I began to feel the tightening cramps that filled me with dread. Michael picked me up from work; we dropped Emerald off with the in-laws, and headed to the emergency room. We feared for the worst, and I clung to the only name that stood out to me at that time—Gabriel, my little angel-baby. It turned out that I was just malnourished and had an infection, so soon that night and it’s particulars—including the name I had called my bump in an attempt to reassure it—began to fade from my memory.

Fast forward to nine months pregnant: we were told that our planned repeat cesarean would be February 12-14^th, or somewhere in there, so I go for my amniocentisis. Even with the steroid shots I had earlier, the baby’s lungs were underdeveloped for their gestational age, a common side effect of uncontrolled maternal blood sugar. It would appear that I had been misfiled as having passed the GTT when in truth, I had once again failed. Our little one was not yet ready to be born, and would have to bake for another week and a half.

I was incredibly discouraged and frustrated and depressed. Because of the misconception we had of when the child was to be born, my parents would unfortunately have to miss the birth. Not to mention that I would have to endure anther miserable ten days of contractions and advancing pregnancy.

Wanting to cheer me up, Michael asked if I would like to hear the name he had chosen.

Ooohhh, I was tempted. I wanted to yell “Yes! Tell me now!!!” But I had made it so far and had dreamt of that moment when my baby was born and my husband would introduce the new person to me…reluctantly, I restrained, but agreed to hear what he had narrowed it down to.

For girls, he liked Myka, Aeris, and Eve.

For boys, he was favoring Alexander, Dylan, and Gabriel.

Dylan was Michael’s best friend in High School; Myka is a variation of his own name; Aeris, an interesting character from a game he played a great deal of. When I heard the names he was preferential to, I was very reassured. I liked all the names he had chosen, though at the time I had assumed he was opting toward our original picks—Alexander Lynn and Eve Lynn Clementine.

The big day comes and Michael introduces me to my son:

Gabriel Lynn Wearden

Oh, it’s a beautiful name and it suits this little guy so, so perfectly. I remember the night at the ER and how I had called him my Gabriel, and I knew that this was the perfect choice; Michael had done an amazing job.

Gabriel is a Hebrew name, meaning “God is my Strength”. The archangel is known as a messenger of God, foretelling the births of John the Baptist and Jesus. It was not popular in the English-speaking world until the 20^th century, where it has shown a particular spike in usage in the last several years—jumping from number 44 in 2000 to 21 in 2010. It is not particularly favored by any group of people—rich or poor, black or white or Hispanic, educated or uneducated—but is used pretty liberally among all groups.

Lynn is a family name—the middle name of Michael, his mother, his mother’s father, and on and on. It means “of the lake”.

We are both thrilled with how the name turned out. As soon as it was attached to this little cutie, Gabe seemed pretty adorable itself, though he was my little Gaby Baby still. And it suits him perfectly—I honestly can’t imagine him being anything else other than our Gabriel. I think even the meaning was well-suited for him, as with the recent diagnosis of autism, he is called to be strong, keeping his faith and trust that God will care for him.

So, that is how we came to decide on our children’s given names! Perhaps not interesting to all, but potentially of importance to them one day, and I would like to say that I remembered =)

~Andie~