What's In a Name?

Today’s conversation in the car went something like this:  “Mom, I know a good name for our baby!”  What’s that Abigail?  “Wyatt.  Wyatt would be a good name.”  Yes, Abigail, Wyatt is a wonderful name, but we already have someone in our family named Wyatt.  “But Mom, that baby died, so he is not here anymore, so we don’t have anyone in our family named Wyatt right now.”  Sweetheart, Wyatt will always be a part of our family and will always be in my heart.  He will always be my son and in our family, his name should be special just for him, it is his special name.

Oh, these conversations are so hard but she has so many questions and I am trying to be so honest with her without completely messing her up for life.  Her tender heart is truly a blessing, but I’m hoping with all of my heart that she gets to experience the blessing of a sibling that we don’t have to talk about in the past tense.  My eyes were welled with tears during that entire conversation and I knew if she saw these tears, her eyes would soon be filled as well.  It’s a delicate balance, talking to my four year old about these things.  I want her to know all that my heart has felt, but I don’t want her to feel it at all.  I think it’s good to be honest with her, for her to know that bad things can happen, but I hope she also gets to witness the good.  I want her to feel safe asking these questions, talking openly about her feelings, to know that it’s okay to have her thoughts and to be able to express them, because I know I have had thoughts such as these, okay, I have had this exact thought, and of course, I have known exactly how to suppress it and not let anyone know it exists.  Wyatt is a great name and it is the name of my first born child.  The one who began to slip through my hands before I even knew I was losing him.  We have been trying to come up with a name ever since we found out four weeks ago that we are having a boy.  We have come up with nothing.  I can find nothing I love as much as the name Wyatt and I often feel myself wishing that I could just chose this name again and be done with it all.  But I know the reality is that it’s not the name that I want back.  It’s the opportunity.  I want to know who Wyatt was, who Wyatt would have been, who Wyatt could have or should have been.  I want the opportunity to hold him in my arms, to kiss him, to mother him, to simply utter his name, “Wyatt”.  And I will never have that again. I can only whisper his name in past tense conversations and hope that it doesn’t make those around me uncomfortable.  And, so I slowly begin to realize why naming this new baby boy growing miraculously inside me has become such a chore:  we had the perfect little boy name, one time long ago, and had to let it slip away, with our first born love and a piece of our hearts.  

Don’t get me wrong.  I am super excited and thrilled and ecstatic for this new baby boy to be entering into our world and into our hearts.  But these emotions don’t come neatly packaged in isolated bundles of joy.  There are ribbons of fear, confusion and frustration that are wrapped and tangled around my every thought about bringing another baby into this world, especially another baby boy.  Before we knew what we were having, people would ask if I had a preference, boy or girl, and I didn’t.  I didn’t care, a healthy baby is all that I’ve ever wished for.  I knew I would be thrilled to have another girl as a lifelong playmate and BFF for Abigail, and I already knew what to do with a baby girl, it’s been amazing.  But I also knew I would be thrilled to have a boy.  One boy and one girl, I might actually feel like our family was complete.  It would be fulfilling to have the opportunity to complete a dream that was so abruptly taken away from me.  A living son might just help me heal a little more this pain that lies inside me.  And these were my thoughts before we found out the gender of this new little miracle thriving within me.

And when we had the ultrasound and we were told it was a boy, my emotions were all over the place.  First and foremost, I was elated.  I felt in some way, my life had come full circle.  Here I was being given the opportunity to really “try again” and attempt to fill a space in our family that had been missing for years.  And that’s when it got complicated.  I knew that void could never be filled, that that baby could never be replaced, that I would never be able to right that wrong.  Wyatt would always be gone and the opportunity to look a baby in the face and murmur that name had been taken right along with it.  A couple of months ago, I wrote a post about revisiting:   "Right Where I Am" .  I wrote about how the miscarriage I had in February brought back a weighty package of past pain, gut wrenching memories and was the impetus for this here blog.  Well, finding out we are having a boy has pushed revisiting to another level completely.  When we found out we were having a girl when I was pregnant with Abigail, I remember feeling relieved.  I knew I would be able to separate her pregnancy from Wyatt’s so much easier, especially since they were so close together.  It gave me comfort knowing that this was indeed a different pregnancy, and therefore had a good chance of having a different outcome.  I desperately needed that bit of hope, that reassurance, that separation, I needed to know in my crazy, grief-stricken, post-traumatic-stress laden mind that there was at least a chance of having a different outcome and this gender difference was at the very least, a good place to start.  So, this time, knowing I am nurturing a baby boy again, well, it creates cracks in my semi-healed heart that are just big enough to let tiny sprouts of fear creep back in to the very back of my mind that often sneak up on me when I least expect it.  Because I promise you, I am over the moon that we are having a boy, truly I am.  It just scares the crap out of me at the same time.  I have been wanting to talk about this here on this blog for the past month, but I guess I’ve been a little scared to.  I’m terrified you won’t understand, because frankly the emotions are so complicated, I often don’t understand.  There have been exactly two people in my world that have either been brave enough or emotionally tuned-in enough to ask me how I really feel about having a boy.  And both of these people really seemed to get it, which made me feel like maybe I could talk about this here with you today.  Interestingly, one of these people was my OB (have I told you how amazing she is? I couldn’t imagine this journey without her)…she even put some of my thoughts into the words that I wasn’t yet able to… “you feel like you already have a son and you don’t want to replace him, right?”  Yep. Nail. Head. Ugh.  And all I could do was nod as I was simultaneously listening to his heartbeat, my heart swirling with competing emotions.  And then the other…a friend who lives far away, we haven’t seen each other for years, a friend I often felt like never got it, never could relate, didn’t understand what I had been through during all these years, however in a moment, I felt like she had always gotten it, maybe I hadn’t been listening.  Of course I hadn’t.  She realized almost quicker than I did that I was afraid that being pregnant with another boy would mean increased chances of losing another baby.  Mmm-hmm.  That’s it in a nutshell.  It’s an association thing and it’s a tough one to escape.  Trust me, I’m trying. 

So, once again, I hope I have made it clear that I really, truly am happy to be having this baby boy.  It is such a blessing and I feel so absolutely, completely fortunate to have this opportunity again.  But along with the joy, fear quickly follows, it’s almost as if one can’t completely thrive without the other.  But the reality is, I’m just scared.  In my heart of all hearts, I have convinced myself that what happened with Wyatt’s pregnancy was just a fluke and that I will never have to go through that hell again.  But there are days when the darkness tries to take over my thoughts and allows me to entertain the idea that maybe Abigail was the fluke and that hell could resurface any time it damn well chooses.  I push this darkness as far away from my heart as I possibly can, but the reality is, its evil memories are a part of me and they have tainted my mind forever.  As positive as I try to be, as uplifting as I want to be, as optimistic as I chose to be, I can never forget that horrible day when I lost my son, that beautiful baby boy with the most beautiful name….Wyatt Nicholas…and there are just times when I have to allow myself to acknowledge the grief that still exists, the pain that still lies within and the memories I can never escape, no matter how much joy is on the horizon….And trust me when I say I will embrace that joy, I will embrace it whole-heartedly, but I will also never be able to forget the journey my heart has been through to allow me the opportunity to experience the joy that lies before me.