What's in a Name? Part 2

My last post, way back in April, was to share our baby's name and the meaning behind her name. The baby that was growing in me, healthy and strong. Thriving. That baby is now with us, in our arms. We truly are blessed. Today's post is not about that, though.

Today is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day.

Today is about taking time to honor all of those that have lost their babies. And to remember those babies.

Of course, anyone who has lost a baby knows that not a day goes by without remembering. It's simply not possible.

Today, in honor of our three little lost babies, I want to share their names. Before now, we have only shared their names with their grandparents, but we want the world to know...these babies were so very wanted, these babies were real, they have names that we can speak out loud. After we made the news public about our miscarriages, an old friend from high school got in touch with me, as she had also been through three miscarriages. She sent me a book that she read that helped her, Heaven is for Real. The book itself isn't about miscarriage, but one chapter specifically brings up the topic. I don't want to give anything away for those that haven't read the book (and if you haven't, please do!), but it was significant to us. Ryan and I both read the book, and we also both felt compelled to name our babies after reading the part about miscarriage and babies that never got to be in their parents' arms. We just couldn't shake the feeling that we needed to name them... We took some time to carefully pick names we really loved, that had special meaning to us, that could be for boys or girls (since we didn't know the sex of any of our lost babies). And here are their names and their meanings...

Honour Adiel (honor; adornment of the Lord) (middle name pronounced ah-dee-ehl)

Aine Lani (radiance; sky/heaven) (Aine is pronounced AWN-ya and Lani is pronounced LAH-nee)

Aster Sloane (star; fighter) We saw this baby's heart beating, saw it fighting to live and grow. But I felt something in my gut the first time we went for an ultrasound, that something wasn't quite right, even though we were told everything was fine. So, we moved forward and were hopeful. My body agreed that I was pregnant; I even suffered from hyperemesis gravidarum during the full first trimester, as I have with all of my living children. The second ultrasound, however, completely broke me as we learned we had lost yet another baby. You are never prepared for news like that. This little one had joined the others, in the stars...

(We debated on the name of the middle one, as nobody really would know how to pronounce it without us explaining. But changing the spelling changed the meaning, and we loved it as it was. It's not a name many will need to know how to pronounce, so what really matters is what we wanted and not what others can say. So, we kept it as it is.)

Those are our babies. The babies we will never get to hold or see or smell, not while we are on this earth. But they were in my body. They were real. And they were loved.