I’m not sure where to post this and I’m sorry it’s so long but I hope someone can take the time to read it as I’m really struggling.
I gave birth to our beautiful baby on [name_f]Sunday[/name_f] 7/8/16 at 6:28pm. Our second little boy. I was booked for an induction that night that I really didn’t want and so I was absolutely thrilled when my labour started spontaneously! It was a hard and fast labour (3 hours total), baby was 4.14kg, posterior, with shoulder dystocia and I still had just the gas and managed to avoid an epidural which is exactly what I wanted. I have felt so happy that despite a dramatic labour/birth, I still managed to have the birth experience I wanted for this baby, he’s here safe and sound, of his own accord at 40+4 weeks and he is recovering better from the birth than my first boy did from his. We’ve come home and we are settling in, our toddler loves him and is coping so well.
The only thing is that I don’t love his name. We struggled all pregnancy to choose a name. We chose our first son’s name at about 22 weeks and that was that. This time we went back and forth, had so many short lists, so many options and so many close calls. My husband had a clear favourite through the whole pregnancy but I didn’t. Nothing seemed to clear up as we got closer to the birth. Then on the day he was born before I was in labour I confided in my best friend that I was really struggling to choose a name still. She and I both have 2yo little boys who are 2.5 months apart with the same first name ([name_u]Noah[/name_u]), which was a total coincidence. Neither of us mentioned the name to each other until her son was born and by that point we had fallen in love with it for our boy and when I told her she was so beautiful and supportive and we stuck with our choice and have never looked back.
I thought she’d be a good person to talk to because we have similar taste in names and I felt like I needed a fresh perspective. I told her what our top name was (hubby’s favourite pick) and the reasons I didn’t feel sure about it. And we talked about some of the other names we’d been considering. All of them were names she and her husband had considered for their second baby before finding out they were having a girl. One in particular stood out and I told her that I’ve been thinking about it more and more and loving it more the more I hear it but worried it was too similar to my first son’s name. She had the same name as her top pick for her second and similar thoughts about it being too similar maybe but she said the more she hears them together the cuter they sound as sibling names and she thinks she would use it if she had a boy.
That was like validation of my feelings around that name and I started to see how I could really picture it being our sons name and it felt really right etc… Then I told my husband and he shot it down immediately saying he still thought it was too similar. I told him I wanted to keep it as an option to decide when the time came.
anyway fast forward and baby arrived and hubby straight away said he felt like baby was an [name_m]Eli[/name_m] (his top pick - the one I had reservations about). Straight after the birth I didn’t know if baby looked like the name I loved ([name_m]Jonah[/name_m]).
I felt so pressured to make the decision because baby had been born and hubby was so set on [name_m]Eli[/name_m] and I didn’t feel as sure as he did on anything else. I said I thought maybe we should sleep on it but he was pretty set. Before we told anybody the name I asked him if he felt sure, again when I signed the choice of name paperwork for the hospital records and again before we announced it on Facebook. As I’ve been using it more I was hoping the things I feel unsure of would go away but they haven’t. It still feels like it’s too harsh sounding with the hard E at the start. I feel like it doesn’t flow in conversation and it just doesn’t feel like what I would call my own baby even though it’s a beautiful name.
When I think about [name_m]Jonah[/name_m] it feels right, it’s gentle sounding like my first sons name and it has a really sweet meaning (dove). And now looking at my new baby and knowing him better I feel like it really does suit him. I know it has a similar sound to [name_u]Noah[/name_u] but I don’t feel like that really matters if we love both names. I don’t think they are so similar that it would be weird. Hubby is worried that it doesn’t give our new son enough of his own identity because it’s close in sound. But he loves the name too and wanted to sleep on it to see how he felt in the morning. We haven’t talked about it yet.
I’m feeling so heartbroken that the naming process has been so hard and that we have told people the name and now will most likely be changing it because I just don’t think I can keep his name as [name_m]Eli[/name_m] when it really doesn’t feel right. I feel like people will judge us and our choices so much more and think we are horrible for changing it because it’s a human being not a puppy. I never ever thought I would change my child’s name but I just don’t think I can keep it as it is when I don’t love it and it doesn’t feel right.
I don’t really know what I’m expecting from writing this post and I’m a bit scared you’ll all just tell me I’m horrible but I just needed to put it into words somewhere.
