The Name...

Oh man... we had a rough time picking a name with this baby. I had picked a name right from the get go that I liked. Brigg. Cory hated it. Well... then I explained to him how much a actually loved this name. I decided that I just wouldn't push it much throughout the pregnancy and eventually he'd come around (0; One day around the half way point, Cory called me at work and told me that he would be okay if we named the baby Brigham and called him Brigg. I almost cried I was SO excited. And that's the way it was for a few months. Then one day Cory said, "Hey, we should probably start thinking of names for the baby".

WHAT????? I was devastated that my plan of just laying low didn't work. When I asked him about our earlier conversation, he said that even though Brigham was on the list... that didn't mean he was 100% okay with that name. WHAT???? When I asked him what names he was thinking of he told me Tucker. WHAT????

We visited this topic of conversation multiple times during my pregnancy, and then retreated quickly. Neither one of us were on the same page... I mean, no where near the same page.

When we went to the hospital I was still certain that the name should be Brigham (well, Brigg actually), but again I was laying low to not overwhelm Cory and to slowly convince him. Plus, everyone said "Just wait until you see him, maybe you'll know then". I thought I could use that to my advantage...  ha ha ha.

Then I had the baby. And guess what? I knew! I knew that my baby's name WASN'T Brigham. And that's all I knew. Which was irritating. I am not your average mother on so many levels and this was one of them. I've heard of so many people who look at their baby for the first time and just KNOW their name. Not me, all I know is what their name is not. Hmmm....

Well Cory still wanted Tucker. Like really wanted it. All I have to say is any name that you cant sing the following song too
"Rachel Rachel bo bachel banana nana fo fachel me my mo machel Rachel"
you should do your kid the favor and not name them that. I realize that every kid will probably get made fun of a time or two for their name, but I wanted to help them out as much as possible.

After two days in the hospital, many many questions from hospital staff, family and friends and lots of names being tossed around, Cory and I were back where we started. I HATED all of his names, and he REALLY HATED all of my names. We decided that the only fair way of choosing a name was for each of us to put 3 names in a hat and then we would pull the name and whatever name was pulled we both HAD to be okay with it. This was serious.

My names:
Brigham
Grayson
Mason

Cory's names:
Tucker
Lane
Garrett

We put them in the hat and both of us were super nervous. Cory let me pick the name from the hat. I did so and opened it and started crying, because this is what I saw:

Tucker.

I couldn't back out of it. But lucky for me Cory took pity on me, probably because I had just pushed his 7 lb. 4 oz. child out of me and now I was crying. So he said, "Let's pick another one". I jumped at the offer and even said he could pull the name. He did so and opened it and threw the paper on the bed. When I opened it, this is what I saw:

Brigham.

HA HA HA!!! Well now I couldn't get what I wanted after he gave up what he wanted, that and the fact that I already had my revelation that wasn't his name. We were both so frustrated it was ridiculous and the name out of a hat was not working. So... I suggested that we throw out all of the names that we had and start 100% over. Cory agreed and we agreed to call it a night. We had a lot to do before we left the hospital the next day. As we were getting ready for bed Cory said, "What about the name Parker?" This was super weird because I had briefly thought of the name earlier but tossed it aside knowing that Cory hated every name that I said. I told him that. We agreed to sleep on the idea of that name and discuss it in the morning. The next morning as soon as we woke up Cory said, "Yup, I'm feeling REALLY good about the name Parker" lucky for him as soon as he said it the night before I felt the same way.

WHAT A RELIEF!!!

Fast forward three weeks to yesterday at church. Cory and I teach the 7-8 year old's in Primary. One of the girls came up to me and asked to look at the baby. She asked what his name was. When I told her she said "I knew it! I'm so smart." Thinking she was like most 7-8 year old know it all's I didn't think much of it. Then a few minutes later she said to me, "didn't you say that whoever guessed the name would get a treat? Because both Samantha and I guessed the name Parker." That's when I remembered that the Sunday before I had the baby we had a baby naming contest with the kids and each of them got to guess what we would name the baby. I didn't believe that the girls had actually picked the name Parker and I went rummaging through my lesson manual to find that paper and guess what I came across??? Both of the girls really had picked the name Parker!!! That is 2 of the 6 kids we had there that day. That is 1/3 of the class basically told us what to name him! The funny thing is, both Cory and I remember thinking that we would never use any of the names that they guessed. If we would have thrown our list away earlier and actually listened to these kids, we could have saved ourselves a lot of STRESS and GRIEF!

Two lessons learned:

1) When you are stressed with a decision, there comes a point when you just need to take a step back, maybe start all over, and perhaps sleep on it.

2) Listen to the little people in your life.