The name game

Is it just me that plays the name game constantly? I'm always always trying to think up names for my babies, or at least, I think up names in those moments when I have not given up all hope that there ever will be babies.

Ideally, I want three perfect names per sex so that I can take them into the delivery room and choose which one suits them best. But I have such a hard time with boys' names because there just aren't very many that I love, and I have so many "rules" about naming that usually if I like a name, it doesn't fit within the rules so has to be discarded. To further add to my craziness, I feel that if I don't have at least one boy's name picked out before I even get pregnant, then I must be destined to have all boys and I have to admit that that thought saddens me a little. Yes, I am weird like that. Trust me, at this point one single healthy baby would make me more than ecstatic whatever the sex, and two healthy boys would be phenomenally wonderful. Or at least I know this logically. And I've been saying that out loud all along. I know that either boys or girls would be amazing. However, I still can't shake the illogical wish that I've had all my life, which is that I want at least one little girl. And yes, secretly, even though I was saying that I really didn't care about the sex, deep down that statement was always followed in my mind by something along the lines of "but I'd really prefer a girl." I already have two great girls' names picked out. I can so easily imagine having a little girl or two that sometimes I think I'm not wishing hard enough for just a baby, just a child, a boy OR a girl. Maybe by wishing for and thinking of girls I'm setting up bad karma because I'm not putting my all into wishing for the right child to come into my life. For my child. In whatever shape or form that child takes, and from whereever that child comes.

So because of course the world works exactly as I think it does, I feel driven to constantly sift through boys' names to try them on for size, even while I have been secretly wishing for a girl, just in case I can fake karma into believing that I'm really more evolved than I am and that I actually wish for any child. But I have tried to see how it would feel yelling boys' names out of the back door, so they'll come in for dinner. To see how it would feel doing that "first name second name family name comerightherethisinstant" thing that they just know means they are in big big trouble. To imagine having rambunctious little boys running around the house. Because I know that if I don't have at least one boy's name and am only thinking of girls' names, I may be destined never to have any babies. Because I know that the lack of a boy's name means instantly that blue paint is in my future if I do manage to get pregnant. Because I know that if I don't have at least one boy's name by the time I find out the sex(es), I might pout and cry if it's a boy if I don't already have some vision of who my boy is going to be. And pouting and crying at finding out the sex is something that an infertile person should never do because they should just feel grateful to have got to that point, so I don't want to let the side down. Or seem like a whiny bitch.

The point of this post is that last night as I was lying in bed trying to get to sleep, a boy's name finally came to me out of nowhere. Except it doesn't fit at least one of the rules, which was "no names in the top 20". And it's been in the top 10 in the U.S. since 1974, so not exactly a rarity. But, hey, it's a start, right? It's finally a boy's name that I can see myself loving. That I can be proud of introducing my son to the world with. And I've no earthly idea why I didn't think of it earlier because it just seems so right. It makes me excited to meet the little guy with that name.

I know, I know, it's all pie in the sky until the darn IVF works, and none of my thinking makes any logical sense, but it makes me feel that I'm moving forwards because I might have a glimmer of a boy's name. That maybe, just maybe, this might be why it will work this time, because I'm maybe finally ready to welcome a boy into my life and it's only been my stupid imaginings of girls that has been preventing my children from coming into my life.