You know those people who talk about the baby like it’s a person before it’s even born? As in, ‘Bradley just loves when I eat ice cream’. Or, ‘Bradley’s nursery will be complete as soon as I hand-stencil the Desiderata on the wall’?
Well I’ve always found this behavior sort of odd, which is part of the reason I didn’t want to tell anybody the name before the birth.
That’s right — we have a name. Some people are surprised we have one ‘already’, but they really shouldn’t be. We’ve had YEARS to figure this out, guys. And actually, we had the name before we even started trying, and well before all this infertility nonsense started. My husband and I both distinctly recall discussing the name as a given already 10(!) years ago*, which means we’ve had it for at least that long.
The only thing we weren’t sure of was whether the gender would fit, because for some reason, we only had a female name. But at our 20-week scan we found out that it will…because, as luck would have it, it’s a girl.
To tell or not tell?
Everyone keeps asking if we were hoping for a girl or boy, and honestly — after years of infertility, failed IVF attempts, and ultimately egg donation — we’re still just over-the-moon that we’re pregnant at all. Our main excitement over learning it was a girl was realizing that we could finally use the name we’ve talked about for so long.**
My husband was so excited he wanted to immediately tell everyone the name, whereas I wasn’t even sure about revealing the gender at first. I admit the initial excitement almost swayed me. But in addition to finding it weird when people refer to an unborn child by a name, I’m also suddenly feeling a little…private?…about it all.
Saying that may seem at odds with the fact that I’m doing so on a public blog — raise your hand if you’ve heard me talk about my uterine lining! — but it’s actually pretty logical. I still believe strongly in raising awareness about infertility and egg donation, but that doesn’t mean I’m not a naturally private person. Infertility steals so much from you — my husband and I couldn’t conceive without getting literally dozens of people involved — and now that we are finally pregnant, I’d like to keep something back for just the two of us.
It’s an…it
In the meantime, my husband and I continue to refer to the baby not by name, or even by gendered pronoun, but as an ‘it’ — including in private. Maybe this will change as the pregnancy progresses further, but for now we’d like to ask our friends and family to do the same.
In addition to my newfound (& somewhat surprising) desire to keep the contents of my uterus private, I think part of it, for me, is that it seems somehow presumptuous/overly familiar to refer so intimately to a person we’ve never met. Another part of it may have to do with the fact that it’s a girl, and I’d like to delay society’s expectations (why is everything so PINK?!) for as long as possible. But I’m also no dummy, and it’s likely that a major part of it has to do with the trauma we went through to get here, and a natural tendency to shield oneself in the event of a loss.
So until this baby makes its grand debut, we will continue to refer to it as an ‘it’, and we hope you won’t mind following along.
xx
*We know this conversation took place exactly 10 years ago because we were trying to adopt a deaf corgi with the same name after we’d already decided we liked it for a kid. When that adoption fell through (and we wound up with our current neurotic fluff-ball instead), the silver lining was knowing we wouldn’t have to choose between finding a new kid’s name, or naming a kid after our dog.
**Ironically, the name we chose over a decade ago on the US is quite popular here in Holland. I can’t say I’m not a little disappointed, but least it will be easy for people here to pronounce…
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