naming the twins (part 1)

*i meant to post this last week when i wrote it but i got sidetracked and then this weekend we all came down with some sort of cold that of course hit me the hardest.  i'm currently trying not to cough the babies out and hoping our household can get healthy and more prepared before the two newest members arrive.

when i was pregnant with ever before we knew her gender we already had her name and a boy name picked out.  i have always been obsessed with names and the meaning behind them, so all the years of my life i named my future children and i would doodle their names in various places.  of course over the years my mind changed a lot.  it wasn't until shortly before i met will in 2008 that i knew i really wanted to name a daughter ever.  luckily will was totally cool with my plan.  boy names were always harder for me to figure out but i remember the exact moment in 2010 that i decided on a name for a boy if we ended up having one some day, just like i remember the exact moment i decided on ever's name.  

i thought for sure since my recent pregnancy was so different from my first that this baby must be a boy but still i researched girl names the moment i knew i was pregnant....actually i probably researched names before since it is a bit of an obsession for me.  i have a list in my phone of lots of possible girl names.  there are several will and i discussed and liked. after getting the shock of my life and discovering we'd be having twins and two more girls i went crazy trying to figure out names for them. we thought we'd use a couple of those names from the list but they never seemed to really click.

  

i didn't want anything that was too matchy matchy yet i wanted them to have names that seemed to fit together and fit with ever's.  i'm not sure if i mentioned it before but after researching ever's name i discovered it was on a baby name list from the 1890's.  i loved that it was vintage yet unusual so i wanted these girls to have the same sort of name.  after researching lots of names from around that same time one kept standing out and will really wanted to use that name.  i had slight hesitation because it has become a little more popular in recent years but it did seem to fit so we had one baby named pretty quickly.  the other baby we decided would have a name from the same vintage list and although i liked it will wasn't as convinced.  then one day near the end of april as i searched on a baby name website i saw one that i had seen months before but never given much thought to until that moment.  i mentioned it to will and i thought he wouldn't like it but he loved it.  

i already knew the middle name of one baby at that point because it came to me as i was reading ever a book at bedtime early on in the pregnancy.  the other middle name i wasn't sure on but the same day i found the first name we liked i found another middle name.  i like the idea of middle names having significance in a familial way.  in case these are the last babies we have i wanted one to be named after my dad and one to be named after my mom.  i already knew how i'd name one after my mom based on the idea that came to me when reading to ever but it wasn't until that day at the end of april that i knew which name i'd use to honor my dad.  

we even thought we knew which twin would get which name and we've been calling them by their names, but in recent days after all the monitoring and ultrasounds of these two i think i might have their names mixed up.   i likely won't know for sure until i see them and get a glimpse of their personalities outside of the womb.  

it has been hard to not share the names with everyone.  i found out my mom spilled the beans to several people recently so i've considered sharing with everyone but i still like the idea of a little bit of a surprise once they are born.  they are going to be here soon enough so not much more waiting.  

expect part two of the story in about 2 or 3 weeks.

i'll share their names and the meaning behind them.

here is a picture from our final ultrasound (at 34 weeks) of their heads together.  it was basically impossible to get any clear pictures of them because they are so crammed in there. they are still both in a breech sort of position kicking away at my bladder.  they still have their heads together which i think is really cute.  we got one squished face shot of baby b.  i could see her face sort of clearly on the screen but it didn't come out well in the picture.  baby a is facing my back and she has been the past few ultrasounds so i've not really seen her face at all except when she was teeny tiny.  according to ultrasound measurements one baby is 5.2 pounds and the other is 5.4 pounds.