Our babies' names

"Does your baby have a name yet?" each new nurse asks me.

"We call her baby dragon," I reply.

Cue strange look.  Perhaps I should explain a little more about all of our babies' names.  And since this is another night of third-trimester insomnia, I think I'll tell the long version of this story.   Mostly for my own records. 

In April 2010, we found out we were pregnant for the first time.  Right on time.  We had been married for not quite a year and trying to get pregnant for a few months.  We played the naming game on lazy weekend mornings.  Elizabeth was an easy choice for a girl - I love all classic Jane Austen names, and my husband loves every nickname that might come up:  Liz, Beth, Eliza, Liza, Lizzy, Z.  (Notice that her actual nicknames turned out to be Roo and Bunny, but that's another story.)  A boy name?  Much harder!  My husband vetoes nearly every one.  "I knew this kid in Little League with that name..." 

But no matter what we chose, we knew we were keeping it to ourselves for the duration of the pregnancy.  Our secret, to use sparingly in private, to whisper at my belly with hope and love, a secret only we knew.  It's just how we like to do things.

But what to call the baby in the meantime, out loud, to other people, while we were pregnant?  At our first ultrasound, baby looked straight out of a sci-fi movie, so for weeks we called her either space-baby or alien-baby.  We got a few strange reactions, but mostly amusement.  Then at 20 weeks we found out she was a she and instantly her name turned into baby girl.  Everyone called her that.  Not "the baby girl" or "a baby girl" but just baby girl.  It was her pregnancy name.  I remember being at a party in the fall, when I was huge and pregnant (and therefore about to head home by 9:30) and one of my friends yelled across the room, "I can't WAIT to meet BABY GIRL at Christmas time!!"  Elizabeth was so loved and anticipated.

Fast forward to the following spring.

In April 2011, a month and a half after Elizabeth died, we found out we were pregnant for the second time.  We were bereaved, broken.  It seemed out of the blue since I hadn't even had a period after I stopped pumping milk.  We had assumed my body wouldn't be up for it for a while, but we hadn't had the heart to actually prevent it.  We hadn't exactly followed doctors orders.  The news started to bring me back to life in a new way, though.  A small spark of hope ignited in my heart.  We played the naming game a little, tentatively, with no real decisions.  Again, the first ultrasound gave us a pregnancy name.  He was our little baby bean.  He would be our rainbow baby.

Near the end of the first trimester, Bean's heart stopped beating and he joined his big sister Elizabeth.

Fast forward to the fall.

At the very end of October 2011, ten months after Elizabeth was born, we found out we were pregnant for the third time.  This time we had obeyed doctors orders and waited three cycles after losing Bean before trying again.  My physical and mental health needed at least that much.  We were still bereaved, still broken, but healing.  Again, a girl's name came quickly to us, almost immediately.  And, no, I can't tell you what it is yet!   But I promise you will love it :)  No boy's name, once again...maybe that was a sign?

But again, we needed a pregnancy name.  They had come so easily the first two times, but this time around we were stumped.  Nothing would stick.  At various times, she has been baby belle, baby bubbles, baby sister, little sister, baby hope but nothing felt natural.  Half the time, we would just gesture at my tummy and say something like, "this one."

At 18 weeks we found out she is a she.  A couple of times after that, we accidentally called her baby girl, but that usually made one of us cry.  That was Elizabeth's pregnancy name.  This little one really needed her own pregnancy name.  We came closer to having one when I realized that (best-case scenario here!) I will hopefully spend almost 21 months of our first three years of marriage pregnant.  That's enough to make a baby elephant.  So the name baby elephant stuck around for about a week.  It just seemed wrong, though. 

Then around 26 weeks, I remembered a comment my cousin made, about it being the year of the dragon, a good year to have a baby (my cousin's mom - my aunt - is Taiwanese).  And, inexplicably, the name baby dragon stuck instantly.  It's her pregnancy name.  Maybe - hopefully - someday we will know why it's such a good fit.  I feel like she chose it herself.

And that is the name story so far...

P.S.  (added later) It's really fun hearing other people's pregnancy and baby name stories in the comments - thanks :)