349 Days/27w3d

The road to choosing a girl's name was not an easy one for Jon and I. First, we were both convinced that we would be welcoming a little boy to the family so we spent most of our time focusing on boy names. Choosing a boy name was somewhat easier because we already had a middle name to start with. It's always been known that if we have a son, his middle name will be Lee. It is a family name on Jon's side that goes back four generations and it is important to Jon to pass it on. We spent months compiling lists, comparing them, making fun of the names that one chose that the other chose that we couldn't stand, and narrowing them down until we finally settled on two: Noah and Gabriel. Of course it didn't end there as Jon liked Gabriel and I was leaning toward Noah. Go figure!

Before we could decide on one or the other we had our "big" ultrasound and found out that we were having a girl! We were incredibly happy, but it also took some getting used to since we had been mentally preparing for and envisioning a boy. I think it was about a month before we started talking about names again. At that point, Jon had only suggested one girl name and I didn't like it. I had suggested about twenty different girl names and he thought about five of them were "ok". I insisted that we were NOT using anything "boring" and Jon insisted that we were NOT using anything "weird". So that left us with.....? Yea, not a whole lot!

We kept at it though and finally narrowed it down to a list that was a little bit more manageable. Before we found out that we were having a girl, I had suggested Marilyn Lucille (after two of my favorite icons- Marilyn Monroe and Lucille Ball) so I brought it up again. It was classic and feminine; not too common for me, but not too exotic for Jon and he really liked it as well. We were about 90% certain that this was the name that we would use.

After sitting on it for a few months though, I started to get over Marilyn. I still think it's a beautiful name, but I wasn't sure how I felt about it for a baby. I also didn't like how it really couldn't be shortened. I toyed with the idea of just switching it to Lucille Marilyn, but I didn't like how that flowed. I finally told Jon that I still loved Lucille, but really didn't want to use Marilyn. Thankfully, he was willing to go back to the drawing board to see if we could think of something else.

We were back at square one and I almost felt bad. It was hard enough coming up with Marilyn Lucille and now we had to come up with something else that we would both like. I went back to my short list of names and matched Lucille with each one as both a first and middle name. I still wasn't coming up with anything so I started to think about what I wanted in a name. Something not too common, but no too crazy. Something that embodied beauty and classic elegance. I decided to make a list of actresses and characters that I felt represented those things. I went back again and matched Lucille with each name and finally got to the very last name. When I said it out loud, I immediately loved it. I said it again and knew that I wanted it to be our baby girl's name. I still needed Jon's approval though and I had no idea how he would feel about it.

I think I made a really good dinner that night and waited until after he finished it to ask him what he thought about the name (sly, huh). He didn't get as excited as I did (that could very well just be a man thing though), but he didn't turn it down! He didn't turn it down! I decided not to push it. I waited until the following day and sent him a text message telling him that I really liked the name and asking him if he liked it too. I couldn't believe how nervous I was waiting for his response! My heart jumped as my phone buzzed and I read his text message, "I really like it too."

So, was that dramatic enough for you all? Are you ready to find out what her name is going to be? I suppose if you made it through all of that you deserve to know ;)

In November, we will welcome......

Or for short:

Lucille Scarlett after Lucille Ball and Scarlett O'Hara (hey, did you know that Lucille Ball was considered for the part of Scarlett?). We told our parents yesterday and they love it. I also found out that Lucille was Jon's maternal grandma's name! Unfortunately, we still have one member of the family who isn't sold on the name. Arianna is quite upset that we will not be naming the baby, "Arianna." Hopefully she will come around ;)