There is a high profile person in Perth who has recently become the father to a healthy baby girl (as opposed to a fully grown one). She is beautiful and the mother is by all accounts a very lovely and organised person.
The baby was born on the 14th March and to date the babe is not named.
Now there are probably very good reasons for that. Who knows what is going on with them.
But I find it hard to imagine going three weeks without naming my babes. I think I took one look at my babes as they were laid on my chest and said “Welcome to the world little Hugamuga/Dippity”, barely seconds old.
With Hugamuga we’d had a tulmultuous time… first births often are. I’d gone into labour two days before and after getting to 8cm and having my waters broken in the home birth centre at the hospital it was decided to transfer to the hospital proper – so I could have an epidural and a rest.
Things didn’t proceed well – the baby was posterior and presenting the widest part of his head – and I was transferred from the labour ward to theatre, prepped for an emergency caeser and they tried first to suction him out… yep, I got the cut.
I was pretty high on drugs at this point but what I remember is that the doctor was pulling on the suction thingy and the bed started going with it. The brakes weren’t on!
Then we heard a loud sucky sound and we thought – omg! Here he/she comes! Then there was a loud theatrical “pop” and the suction cap fell off and the doctor went flying.
The monitoring equipment went wild and it was decided they couldn’t wait for a caeser – they just had to rip him out. The student midwives observing at the back of the room visibly winced as the forceps went in and Hugamuga came out. (that’s not a good sign)
He scored 4 on his first apgar, and 8 on his second. He looked like a little blue frog with a squashed nose and bruises on his head both where the suction cup had been and by his ears – like sideburns – where the forceps were clamped. But he was okay. Safe. Yes a rocky landing but the plane didn’t crash. I was lucky.
Meanwhile at the other end of the bed the doctor was busy practicing his needlepoint. Third degree tear. 40 stitches. Please remember I’m still very high on drugs. “So you won’t be able to have sex for two months and you’ll need to take laxitives regularly for 6…” sew sew sew… “Oh,” says I, “So I guess anal sex is out of the question?” The midwives glare at Groover. I was joking! I think I’m hysterically funny. “Don’t distract the doctor darling”, says Groover, “you need him to concentrate at the moment…”
But I digress what were we talking about again???
That’s right. Names.
I don’t think I’m especially well organised but I did have the name thing organised. We’d agreed on both a boys and a girls name for Hugamuga… he would have been Madeleine if a girl.
And for Dippity we had a deal, Groover got to name the baby if a boy – Declan (hmmm not so much) – and I got to name her if she was a girl, which happily, she was. But again no delay.
So (finally) here’s my question. Did it take you a while to name your babies?
And if so, why?
Religious reasons perhaps? You’re the Crown Prince of Denmark maybe? You had the baby unexpectedly early?
I’d love to know your story…
{ 11 comments }
We had it drummed into our heads during ante-natal classes that it was a mortal sin for a baby to leave the delivery ward without a name. So we were well prepared each time.
I have friends who still haven’t named their 6 month old baby! There’s some issues there so, obviously, they are not the norm.
Our girls’ names were settled before they were born. In fact we had one boy’s and one girl’s name chosen before I was even pregnant with Guerita. With Chiq we were a bit stumped because we’d only ever had one girl’s name we both agreed on, and we’d used that already. We didn’t know the sex before hand with either. If Chiq had been a boy we would have used the name we had lined up for Guerita but for a girls names we had narrowed it down to 2 and were still undecided up until a few days before she was born. We hadn’t told anyone our choices but then out of the blue a few comments were made by family members about possible names and that tipped the balance. Both girls were greeted by name straight out the womb. I can’t imagine waiting so long to name a baby, but I guess they have their reasons.
Hi – have enjoyed popping in to your blog on and off over the past year or so.
Anyway, just had to post a comment about naming babies. We have friends that take an inordinate amount of time to name their babies. The last one went for more than three months as ‘Baby’. By the time he actually got a name, I was so used to Baby that I thought he’d be known as that forever. Luckily we lost the habit.
That photo of the beautiful newborn baby go me quite clucky! By the last two weeks of my pregnancy I always made sure we had two names confirmed. Then through each subsequent pregnancy I would make us go through the whole naming short list thing again, as I didn’t feel like I could use our second choice name on the next child.
Yes, I’m amongst the others who named my babies before they were born. Almost from conception I knew exactly who these children were. There was no second name because I was VERY certain of their gender by some unknown instinct. I also have a third name still in my head which makes me think that someday I’ll have another daughter.
I do remember that non of the names I choose for my kids were on my list when I was a child. lol Do you remember the names you were going to give your kids when you were ten?
Naming a child is a very private and personal choice and sometimes it would take longer. Being afraid of the power a name can have could make anyone cautious. This choice is one that will influence that little persons entire life. Imagine making the wrong choice? I think names require a great deal of intuition, perhaps these parents just haven’t heard it calling to them yet, or don’t trust their instincts when they do hear it.
I worked with a guy who had “Boy” on his birth certificate because his folks took more than 30 days to name him. Apparently that is/was all you are/were allowed? I wouldn’t know. It only took us a day or two to name our cats.
Anyway, back to this guy. So after taking all that time they called him…..Paul. Nothing wrong with Paul, by golly, but what’s with all the FUSS?
By the way, after I’d managed to stop clenching up over “third degree tear”, I snorted mightily over your anal sex joke. I’m still snorting.
All of mine were named before they were born. The first baby had only a girls name selected, I just couldn’t settle on a boys name, luckily T was a girl. Second baby? Same deal, I just couldn’t find a suitable girls name and sure enough M was a boy. Third baby? Had two names chosen and baby K was a girl. Fourth was a boy, J. Then I decided we had enough babies since the dining table only had six chairs………..
River: lol that’s one way of working out family size – thankfully not ours – we can seat 8 at our dining table.
Hazel: Groover wanted the ground to swallow him up…
Rebecca: That’s so true. We made sure none of the shortenings or initials could be turned into anything nasty… for instance I heard of a family once called Ness, their boys were named Andrew and Paul. Imagine the delight of their schoolmates!! (try the initial combined with the surname)… Plus you want a name that’s not going to sound silly if your child becomes a leader of industry…
PQ: Isn’t that funny… I felt the same way. It was as if that name was used up, even though we didn’t use it.
Guera: We were going to call our boy Ben. Named after the one person in all the world that Groover and I knew independently of eachother… it’s another blog post… but when we told my mum suddenly it didn’t sound right…
Lightening: We didn’t get it drummed into us but I guess I just thought “that’s what you did”, after all you have 9 months to think about it!
In can sometimes take a little while to name a baby in Japan especially if the families are very traditional. Even if I like a name for our children I will most likely still have to have it approved by a monk to see if it is good luck for the baby. Sometimes on certain days of the year babies shouldn`t have certain names too but I am not really sure how it all works.
I love talking about baby names though!!! I know what I want to call my kids (And my partner has agreed) but not sure if that will be the names they get! I really think I have to see the baby before I could name them!?!
My mother was given the name patricia but when her father went to register her birth he forgot what they had decided (She was the fourth girl) so he wrote down his wife (my grandmothers) name but spelled it differently. He then forgot to tell his wife and when the birth certificate arrived in the mail weeks later she discovered that she had been calling the baby by the wrong name for weeks!
I was the worst about choosing names. My wife had a short list, but wouldn’t share until I had a look in the book. I am the worst procrastinator generally and this was no different. In the end, since we knew the sex of the first one, it wasn’t too difficult to go through her short list and pick one.
During the pregnancy rather than calling the baby it when we were talking to it we gave it the name Daisy. It was actually quite easy to chose that as a middle name.
My sons name, who we didn’t know the sex off until I saw the penis when he emerged, was chosen soon after birth using the same no real objection strategy. We chose David for his middle name because of strong connections to both sides of the family.
I got lucky myself. My grandmother wanted to name her first male grandson Ebenezeer after her husband. Her son was also called Ebeneezer. I got lucky and landed a good Scottish name.