What's in a name?

I finally realized it is okay. It’s okay to not be happy and overwhelmed with excitement all the time. It is just too much for my psyche to sustain on a regular basis. I’ve been feeling so guilty that I’m not over the moon all the time, and at times am anxious about becoming a mother or frustrated that I’m so far away and the waiting feels endless. It is a lot of pressure when you’ve been glum and a drag to be around for so long due to infertility, that you’d better be really happy now gosh darn it! I am mostly, but just not all the time.

And when I finally got the latest scan report on the 4^th of July and didn’t get the expected shot of ecstatic happiness, I felt like something was wrong with me. Don't get me wrong....I’m thrilled to know they are both still healthy. I just wish I could make out anything on the scans, but the bigger they get I can only make out indiscriminate body parts. Out of two pages of pictures I can only make out that one is a side profile of the head, and the rest are anybody’s guess.  My mother got me all excited by emailing me back when I sent her the report and saying “Is it true?! Are you really having two girls!?” I must have looked over the scans for an hour trying to see what she saw, but then I finally realized she saw where it listed the surrogate’s gender on two separate pages as female. Sigh.  I understand now the drive for women who do surrogacy in the US to have a close relationship with the surrogate. I don't think it is so much about having a relationship with the surrogate as forming a relationship with your baby and the surrogate helps facilitate that by involving you more closely in the pregnancy. If a close friendship also results, that is a wonderful bonus.

The invitation list for the baby shower is done, and will go out very soon. That has me very excited! I had a brilliant idea and made myself some very cute signs for the shower that have our selection of 6 names on them with the meanings. I realized that if I thought I was getting tired of explaining and spelling out names at some fun parties we went to recently, I would get REALLY tired of answering those questions at the baby shower twenty times over in a loud room.  It was surprisingly easy and only took less than an hour of discussion with the hubby to make up our minds. Of course I did many hours of research before hand on thousands of Indian names first to pick out ones I liked. I made index cards with every name I liked including the meaning of it and any nicknames it might spawn. I kept the toss pile so if our kid tells us later they don’t like their name I can show them some of the others so they’ll be grateful because it could be worse. One that was a definite toss pile was the girl name “Anala.” It sounded beautiful. But I took a second look. Think about it. 

I am slightly concerned that the boy name I picked if it is a boy and girl have initials that don’t exactly spell out something desirable, but I love the name so much I’m just going to pin my hopes on the kids on the playground not connecting those dots. Who thinks about what someone else’s initials anyway? I hope I don’t live to regret that statement.

So without further ado…here are our name selections!

I would add that I am impressed that my husband is secure enough in himself to not be threatened by the selection of the name "Arjun."  It is in the top 5 list of Indian names currently, and I love the correlation to mythology and the sound of it.  But I also have a mad crush on the Bollywood actor Arjun Rampal.