For the sake of documenting this for the boys, I thought I'd post about it on their blog.
Naming the boys was really difficult for us. If you can believe it, even with all of the problems I'd been having with the pregnancy, we did not have names for the boys before they were born. I don't even remember really even talking about names before the boys were born. (Can you say denial much?) It actually took us until they were three days old before we finally named them.
If I am honest, I don't know how long we would have gone before naming them (I had gotten used to calling them baby A and baby B even!!) had the woman from the Social Security office not come in to say that if we didn't have names for the boys by the morning, she was going to send the forms off blank. She made it seem that we'd have loads of extra work to do to correct the paperwork later, so we decided it was time.
So how did we get to Shawn and Jason?
I had two baby name books at the hospital with me. I remember buying one of the books at Target very early in my pregnancy, but I don't think I had even opened it yet. I can't tell you where the other book came from. I think it just sort of materialized out of thin air.
I took one of the books, and Isaac took the other. We sat next to each other and each poured through every single boy name listed in our book individually, writing down names that we thought were nice and had meanings that we liked.
Once the names were on paper, we shared our lists. We went through the names and left only the ones that both of us liked. (That shortened the list considerably!)
We settled on Shawn and Jason relatively quickly, I think mostly because we both liked the meanings. We struggled most with the middle names, though.
This last picture is the final sheet. How strange it is to see that we almost had a different middle name for Jason! I really didn't even remember that.
As to which baby got which name, that was pretty easy. We decided that baby B was going to be Jason because he was the sickest at the time. We needed him to heal himself and fight the fight so he could come home with us someday. Baby A, Shawn, was being his usual rock star self even back then and was just kicking preemie butt at that point. He truly was a gift. But I have to admit that it took me a bit before I stopped calling them A and B and started calling them their actual names! (I blame the drugs.)
It cracks me up that I wrote A and B next to their names. Like I'd forget or something! I am glad I did, though, because it is fun to look back and see how I was thinking back then. Plus, I was pretty sick myself, so I very well may have forgotten! (We found out they had to take two antibiotics that day, too, as you can see by the two bottom words on this sheet.)
I love the boys' names. I especially love their meanings. They were just so perfect for them at the time, and I think they continue to fit each boy's personality even now. :-)
Shawn (a gift from God) Riley (valiant) and
Jason (healer) Kelly (warrior)
