Prenatal Parental Guilt

When I first became pregnant, choosing a name for the baby was the last thing on my prenatal checklist. My previous experience with Rylan told me it could wait.


When I was pregnant with Rylan, I was completely convinced he was a girl and even had a cute little girl name picked out. I considered all of the effort choosing that name (and convincing Trevor to like that name) a waste of time and brainpower when we spotted that little boy part on the ultrasound. Sadly enough, we won't even use that name now because it randomly shot up into the top 10 baby girl names.


Then, after searching for boys names for 4 months and formulating a long list of possibilities, a little baby boy was born to us that didn't look like he matched any one of those 15 names. After so much consternating, the day he was born we went back to square one-- the baby name book. There, between Ryker and Rylee, was the perfect name for our little bundle of joy.


In short, we spent countless hours deliberating names during those 9 months, and the only time that actually counted was the 20 minutes Trevor spent thumbing through the baby name book after Rylan was born.


So when anyone has asked me if we have a name for our little girl, up until two weeks ago I've nonchalantly dismissed that idea with a wave of my hand, repeated this brief history, and informed them that we were not going to waste our time and make the same mistake twice. Seriously, do I look like a greenie?


Up until two weeks ago.


About two weeks ago I started panicking.


How can I not have a name for my child? What kind of a mother calls the baby "the baby" up until birth? And shouldn't I have SOME kind of idea? What if the miraculous 20 minutes that produced her brother's name does not happen this time, and we deliberate for months, and the 9 months we should have spent deliberating before her arrival becomes 9 months we spend deliberating AFTER her arrival, and we call her nothing but "the baby" until she's WALKING????? THEN what kind of a mother am I? ?!??!??


You can see how a pregnant woman such as I could work herself into a tizzy with such thoughts.


So in the last fourteen days I've begun The Search For the Perfect Name. And it has only added to my prenatal paranoia. I'm beginning to think I'm incapable of producing a suitable name for a sweet, feminine, lovely well adjusted girl-child. As I've run different ideas by various friends and family members, comments I've received include:


1. "It reminds me of that one horror film, you know, the one about..."


2. "It sounds like it would rhyme with anomaly"

and my personal favorite:

3. "It makes me think of a sausage"


So now, in place of feeling guily about my unfeeling lack of a name, I am guilt-stricken by the image I am already giving to my daughter of a horrific anomalous sausage, even before she is born or named.

And I thought it started after the baby came. I must still be a greenie.

Note: My excessively guilty conscious bids me tell you that comments # 2 and 3 weren't actually said to me by family or friends. Comment #2 was a thought I shockedly came to myself regarding a name I rather liked, and comment #3 was merely repeated to me by a friend as a comment another person had made regarding one of my favorite names. The end result, however, was the same. I severely questioned my ability to name a child. For the flow of the story, I told a white lie, but here I confess.
Ah, a burden lifted.

Note #2: Trevor points out to me that there is no resloution to this story. When my guilt is resolved, I'll let you all know. Until then, you are unresolved with me.

Note #3: Trevor also suggests I end with a question, such as "Does anyone have any ideas on names?" I'm not stupid enough to go there, but I will take his last suggestion and ask you all to pray for us so that we won't blight our child with a sausage name. So to end, and in resolution, please pray for me. Wait, I should make that big.

Please, please pray for us.

Spanning The Great Gender Divide

Trevor, although very excited about the little girl we're having in October, is having a little trouble wrapping his head around the concept of numerical gender equality in the Ray household.

Yesterday I went fabric shopping for the baby's nursery with Tiffany. We had a delightful time perusing the bolts and color matching, looking for just the right shade of deep pink to go with the pretty floral we'd selected. It was, without a doubt, a feminine fun-fest, and yet I naively expected Trevor to be equally tickled with the fabric samples I brought home. His initial reaction was somewhat less than thrilled.

I laid out all the cheerful pinks and greens on the bed. "So what do you think?"

Trevor looked at it, paused characteristically, and said, "Well, I guess she is a girl."

"Yes, Trevor, she is."

He stared at the assortment while I rambled on.

"So this is the main fabric-- we kind of based everything else on it. I saw this first and just loved it and so--

"This one?" He picked up the floral. "It looks like a couch."

"Are you serious?" I took a harder, squinted look at the sample. "A couch? No it doesn't." Satisfied at my own assesment, I blithely continued on. "So then we started to look for that darker color in the flowers, but they didn't have it, so we went--"

"So I guess you're planning on having her blonde then?"

That one really stopped me in my tracks. "Huh? What does that have to do with anything?"

"These colors just look kind of Swedish, or Anglo or something. To go with a blonde baby."

Never in my life had it occurred to me to decorate my nursery to match my baby. But now that he mentioned it.... I looked appraisingly at the little pile. "That's funny. Actually, I think it would look better with a dark-haired baby anyway." Suddenly, for some reason, I cared that he didn't think it would look good if our baby wasn't blonde. Wait! How was I letting myself get sucked in?

"Trevor...". I put on my pleading voice. "You're supposed to be excited. You're killing all my joy!

[sidenote: killing all the joy is a catch phrase in our marriage. It means one party's utter lack of enthusiasm is sucking all the life, happiness, and pleasure out of a subject the opposite party had previously been deriving satisfaction from].

You're supposed to be glad that I'm taking the time to look for fabric and planning everything to make a beautiful room for our daughter. You're supposed to say, 'Becky, thank you for being the kind of wife and mother that takes the time to beautify our home.' Now you say it, except in your own words. " I looked up at him, waiting expectantly.

He looked into my eager eyes. "Becky, I'm so glad you're planning this. Because if I did it with that fabric, I'm sure it would look like a couch, but I know you'll make it look nice."

I smiled, satisfied. I love Trevor's own words. He always delivers. Somehow, retaining all of his maleness, he spans the gap.

The Library

I went to the library yesterday. Going to the library is one of my favorite things in the world to do. I took Rylan with me (of course) and as we first entered the maze of shelves I had such warm, motherly satisfaction.

Look at my boy, I thought.

He was happily walking down the aisle, holding a stuffed monkey he refused to leave in the car, peering at the various books and looking back every few seconds to make sure I was there.

I wanted my camera. Surely, this is the stuff good motherhood is made of. I needed a digital witness.

By the end of our visit, I was wishing I didn't have a library full of personal witnesses.

Somehow, in the half hour we were there, he managed to:

get the monkey lost,

get himself lost,

entertain the patronage with 20 minutes of me trying to drag his unwilling body to the checkout with one arm while I juggled 6 books and the redeemed monkey in the other,

and

push the elevator alarm button.

Who decided the alarm button should be below all the other buttons, anyway?

Once we got out the door, he managed to run into the middle of the parking lot while I was trying to put the books down so I could buckle him up. Then, as I put him in the car I accidently bumped his head on the door frame.
He looked at me, shook his finger, and said, "No. Uh uh. Soft."

I can laugh while I write this for two reasons and two reasons alone.

One: I have six really fun books to read
and
Two: Thank heavens God is my one true witness, because I try.