What's in a name?

Who are you? She had no idea. She was Sophie Amundsen, of course, but who was that? She had not really figured that out--yet. What if she had been given a different name? Anne Knutsen, for instance. Would she then have been someone else? -Sophie's World

Talking about names to one of my friends who just had a baby reminded me that I haven't posted about how we came up with Sophie's name. We really had a hard time with this one. It also took us some time with Owen, but I don't remember it being as hard. We pretty much just had to choose between Owen and Luke (Keith liked Owen, but I had to be convinced). This time we had a list of names, but neither of us really felt any of them were all that good. The main ones on the list were Audrey, Ainsley, Chelsea, Sophie, and Estelle. For a while I was pushing for Ainsley, but Keith thought it was weird to pick a name that was really only known on tv (the blond Republican on The West Wing). I also found I couldn't get over the blondness of the name and couldn't use it for a black-haired baby. If she hadn't been born so close to Chelsea Clinton's wedding we may have ended up using Chelsea, but I was never a huge fan of the name. Keith was fixated on Estelle for a while after she was born (he liked that it was uncommon, but people still recognize it), but we were worried that other people wouldn't like it (the grandma-ness of it; plus for me it didn't pass the yell test). Audrey was a nice name, but didn't have any draw for me. Sophie was too close to Sophia, which is a VERY popular name (which we wanted to avoid). Since none of the names really appealed to us that much, we briefly tried some off-the-wall names like Coral (Keith wouldn't allow us to name our child after the mother in Finding Nemo, even though he came up with it).

In the end we let Owen decide. Before the baby was born we would ask Owen, "Should we name your baby sister (insert name)?" Sophie was the only one he consistently said yes to. On our way to the hospital after my water broke, Owen was still focused on Sophie. That was what eventually convinced me to pick it, and I convinced Keith to go for it. We had originally said we would use Virginia as a middle name (we wanted something that meant something to us, and that was my grandmother's name, plus growing up I vacationed in Virginia to visit my grandparents). We decided to use Estelle since we liked the name but couldn't quite pull the trigger. We figured that if she didn't like Sophie, she could go by Estelle.

For the first couple weeks of Sophie's life, Keith said he didn't like it and even talked about changing it. Luckily he couldn't come up with anything to replace it with, so it's staying. I later had a nurse at the NICU tell me that before we named the baby, she was telling another nurse that she looked like a Sophie (she didn't know it was on the list). She was super excited when she found out we did name her Sophie. And I took that as a sign that we did well.

In case you're wondering, Sophie (or actually, Sophia) means "wise".

In other news, we met with the geneticist, Dr. Aleck, today. We had already heard the results of the chromosomal tests (everything was negative for the tests they did). To me that was good news, and he agreed, but it was interesting to see his take on it. To him her medical issues were a bit of a mystery - since he couldn't find a known "syndrome" that explains her set of issues, he seemed almost disappointed. I asked if it was possible that they were just a coincidence - and didn't have to be explained by a syndrome - but his answer was a bit vague (which I guess in this case reality is vague). He pretty much said it depends if other medical or developmental issues pop up as she gets older. He recommended that we bring her in to see him every 6 months to a year. I'm not sure how to take that. Do we really need to worry about her as she grows up, or is this a case of having too much information, and looking for a solution (or cause) when there isn't a problem? I guess we just need to be aware of how she develops over time, which really isn't that different than any baby.

Owen seems to be developing just fine, although in the "feeding himself" development he's taken a step back. He now requests us to "feed me". Even with his milk bottle sometimes. I chalk it up to him being a two year old, and I am hoping it's just a phase. It's a little weird because just a couple of weeks ago I thought he was moving to the "I want to do everything myself" phase. Ah, life with a two year old. He keeps us on our feet!