Sunday, July 19, 2009

What's in a name?

When I was pregnant with my first child, we could not find out the sex of the baby because our baby kept it's legs crossed. Julian and I knew that we wanted really great names, but that's about all that we agreed on. We had a hard time picking a name that the other liked. After going through books and magazines we came up with a name for a girl...Blyss. We had a hunch that it maybe a girl so we focused on Blyss. But what if we had a boy? What would we name him? The name Wysdom kind of crept into the conversation a couple of times.

As it turned out our hunch was right and we had a girl. So the name Wysdom got tucked away. Little did we know that having spoken of Wysdom at that time sent the universe working. Two years later, a baby boy was to be born.

When I became pregnant for the second time, Julian and I immediately remembered the name Wysdom. However I didn't know if it fit anymore. Could we or should we give our son the name Wysdom while knowing that he had Down syndrome? Would he get teased more? Would he like it? Or be able to say his own name? Even though I loved the name, I somehow now had reservations about it. It was Julian's ultimate determination and insight that turned us back to the name of Wysdom when I strayed. Why shouldn't he have this name? Wasn't he created in thought two years earlier? Why shouldn't he have every right that any other baby would.? And so it was written so to speak, and Wysdom was chosen. Wysdom Elijah Gordon was born.

Now we love it and couldn't picture him with any other name. Our son needed a name that could stand up beside his sister's name of Blyss. Now we think that no other name would seem to fit this little soul who has touched so many lives with his spirit and joy.

2 comments:

TUC said...

Great naming story. I had just the opposite happen. We had both a girl and boy name picked out (and we knew the baby had Ds.) When she (yay, a girl!) was born, she protested her name and so we gave her a new one, one that fits her very well. When I look at her even now I am still surprised with myself that she has a name I never even thought of until she was a day old.

Cathy said...

Hi Sasha! Glad to see you've entered the wonderful world of blogging! I'm looking forward to learning more about your family. I didn't realize that Wysdom was such a little peanut when he was born!