First the great news, J's sister had her baby early yesterday morning! She waited to find out the gender and it's a little boy. It sounds like her labor and delivery went exactly as she had hoped which is wonderful. Unfortunately, the baby had some issues with meco.nium and had to be admitted to the NICU :( It sounds like he will be fine, but will have to be there for a few days. My in-laws left last night to drive the 12 hours or so to be with them and meet the baby, so hopefully we'll know more after they arrive.
I'm 37 weeks and 5 days today. With my SIL now actually having her baby (at 39 weeks and 3 days), it's hitting me that I could actually be having this baby very soon! I think we're ready in most areas, but now of course, we've had some drama arrive with our name choices! We've had a list of 5 names that we liked for a long time. Our plan all along was to not share the names with family, friends, etc. (just to avoid the 'helpful' suggestions) and make a final decision about his name after he was born. That way we could make sure the name was perfect for him, etc. The past few weeks I've started to really feel like our top name choice was the one and so did J! Of course, I was still planning to wait until after he was born to make sure, I wasn't ordering personalized gifts or anything.
My SIL and her husband didn't find out that they were having a boy ahead of time and yesterday they named him Richard and will call him Ricky. Our first choice name at this point was Nicholas but we would call him Nick. Last night J pointed out that as they got older, they would probably go by Rick and Nick and would that be strange for cousins the same age to have names that rhymed? Hmmmm.......I actually hadn't thought of it before then and now I'm super concerned about it. They have different last names and currently we live several states away from each other and don't see each other a lot, but still - I'm starting to panic and wonder if I should give our name list more thought. So, I'd love your advice - is this something you would worry about? Or do you think the names are so different that we don't need to worry about what the other kid would potentially go by later in life?
Hmmmm, Im kind of nuts about not naming my kid anything that resembles someone else in the family. But it's totally your kid and your decision. I think if you really love the name Nicholas so much, then go for it! However, if you think it will bother you...nick...rick...then you might want to have a back up name. How about Nicholas as a middle name? I have cousins named Lynn and Lyndsey..which I think is sort of close..but it hasnt scarred anyone for life haha So I think go with what your heart is telling you. If you this your baby is meant to be a Nicholas, dont short yourself on that or name your kid something you dont absolutely love :)
ReplyDeleteYou should name him whatever you want :) Since its different last names and yall aren't in the same town, so they wouldn't be in the same class or anything I don't see the harm in Rick and Nick. Honestly, being married to a Richard-Ricky-Rick myself, I'd tell your SIL to change that poor boy's name ;) The hubs got it as a Jr. and well, while Rick is fine, the Ricky thing is just not especially when the family still calls him that at 30 years old. If we have a boy, he'll be the III and go by his middle name!
ReplyDeleteHowever, if the Rick/Nick thing is always going to bother you don't do it, but in reality I don't think the kiddos will care at all.
Naming your baby is one of the most exciting (and difficult, I think!) experiences of being a new parent. Mech and I have gone around and around quite a bit. We always land on the same name though for a boy and for a girl. So we've at least been able to avoid the drama of not agreeing on names! That said, something we second guess and we do have back-up names in case we feel our baby's name should be different once we meet him or her.
ReplyDeleteIn terms of sounding the same... I have a name that sounds very similar to girl cousins that are closest to my age on both sides of my family. In fact, on my mother's side, there were three of us with similar sounding shortened names. Our full names are very different, however. It never bothered any of us, because we all had very different personalities and we were a very close family. Also, as we grew up, some of us stayed with our shortened names but some went with our full names simply out of what best matched our individual personalities.
Either way... it's not a huge deal, I don't think. Also, two of our nephews (on the same side of the family) have very similar sounding names, but they're such different kids and their shortened names are very different. We know that if we have a son, he will be named after Mech (barring a major change of heart if we have a boy and feel differently once seeing him). Our son's full name will sound very similar to our youngest nephew on Mech's side. However, their shortened names are different. I absolutely love Mech's name and giving our son the same first name but different middle names (I'm not wild about the idea of a proper "junior") has very much been a hope and dream of mine. So similar sounding or not, we're most likely going to go with it. And, like you, our nephew lives half a nation away, so they wouldn't really see one another all that much.
Best of luck! You're getting so close!!!