Baby Names

Well, we announced our baby's name to the girls so I guess it's pretty official! It's so weird to me saying and using the name before birth. We knew our girl and boy names for the girls, but since we didn't know what we were having, they never got used until they were born. We referred to Felicity as Penny (small form of Cash, our last name), and Clare as Jellybean. We had dubbed this baby Mimi3, as Clare has long called all babies or small things "Mimi" and he's our 3rd child, but now we go between using that and his name, Jacob. I wouldn't let Steven or I use it at all for a few months because I'm so afraid I'll get tired of it before he's born! But I felt like knowing it would probably be good for the girls, and they both talk about him, so I think it was a good choice. We haven't totally solidified a middle name, but we are leaning towards Theodore. That was our boy name when we were pregnant with Felicity, but by the time I was pregnant again, it was way too popular for me to consider. This time I knew I didn't want it as a first name, but wasn't sure whether I'd want to use it as a middle name. Often through this pregnancy, when I get overwhelmed, I remember how much God wanted this baby here. If you need a slightly TMI recap, this baby was a one shot wonder 😂😂😂, which was shocking considering Felicity took many months and fertility treatments, and Clare took many months. This time, we were afraid but open to the thoughts of a 3rd, and then later I said a prayer to God, essentially "God, I don't know if we'll be that open again, so if you want us to have a 3rd child, make it happen". And here we are. So anyway, I was up with pregnancy insomnia the other night and googled names that mean "God's will" or "God's gift", and up popped Theodore among many other names that were from other cultures and not something we'd choose. It just felt meant to be. Like "oh, there you were all along!".

Did I ever share the story on Jacob? I don't think I did. The day we found out we were having a boy (maybe 13 or so weeks with an early blood test my mom sent us from Amazon), we were pretty stressed. Honestly, we both expected it to be a girl and we *know* girls, so it shocked us! We sat on the porch that afternoon for quite some time, chatting and getting used to the idea. We began chatting names, which we had already done SO many times before, and had never even come close to agreeing on one. Even previous pregnancies, the girl names were easy and the boy names were so tough for us! I went into the hospital with Clare knowing that, if she was a boy, I didn't want to use the boy name we'd picked lol. And all of a sudden one of us mentioned Jacob, which had someone never come up on a saint list before, and we both lit up. We both liked it! I quickly googled and yes, he's a saint! He was a martyr in Korea.

So, barring any random decisions that I totally have the prerogative for, our baby is Jacob Theodore!