Behind Our Baby's Name

I've had a lot of people ask me why it is we chose our son, Judah's, name, and also why we gave him such a long name. Before we knew he was going to have problems, we had such a hard time picking a name for him. I was really hoping for a girl for two reasons - 1) I grew up with only little sisters and didn't have a lot of experience with boys and 2) I had the perfect name picked out for a little girl that I was absolutely in love with. When we found out we were having a boy it started a long running disagreement between me and my husband about what name to give our baby. We went through literally hundreds of them. I wanted something softer like Liam or Oliver and he wanted something strong and manly (insert tons of unpronounceable Scottish names here). While we were visiting my husband's family in Georgia when I was around 18 weeks pregnant, his sisters were reading off names out of a baby book that his mom had used before he was born and two names finally gave me pause - Asher and Judah. Asher was more of a middle name to my husband so Judah became our frontrunner. However, a couple of weeks later, we were given the bad news that something was wrong with our son and naming him went on the back burner and we just kept calling him by his nickname that we had been using for him from the beginning - Baby Bean.

Fast forward 13 weeks and we were told on an August morning that they could no longer stop my labor and we were having a baby that day. We had four names that we loved but hadn't narrowed down to two so when I asked my husband what were going to name our baby he said without hesitation, "Judah Nathaniel Oliver Beorn." And it just felt right. The nurse came in a few minutes later and said she was trying to make name bands for the baby and asked his name. Again, without hesitation, we answered, "Judah." And each of his names has a special meaning behind it.

Judah
In Genesis 29, Jacob marries two wives - Leah, after being tricked into it by her father, and Rachel whom he actually loved. We are told that God sees that Leah is unloved and takes pity on her by giving her sons while her sister remained childless. With her first three sons, Leah gives them names that reflect how God has given her children and not her sister. But when she gives birth to her fourth son she says, "This time I will praise the Lord." And she names him Judah, which means "praise." Even though I just liked the sound of the name Judah, this verse was what solidified it for me. Judah is actually our second child, with us having lost the first to a miscarriage at 8 weeks around three years ago. After my miscarriage I was very angry with God for taking my child away from me and for my life seemingly falling about afterwards. It took me a long time to lose that anger and even longer to get back to a point where I could trust God. So when I found out I was pregnant again I decided I was going to praise God for a second gift no matter what the outcome and while that has been so hard throughout this journey we've gone on so far, I just have to think about what Judah means and I am reminded of how good God has been to us so far.

Nathaniel
This is a name that is Greek but comes from a Hebrew word meaning "God has given." After I had my miscarriage I almost immediately wanted to try and have another child to try and heal my heart as well as "replace" what was lost (which is not the right thing to do when dealing with grief). However months and then years passed without us being able to have a child. We went to see a fertility specialist after two years of no luck. They weren't able to find anything that was obviously wrong so they wrote up a plan for us to start Clomid, a drug to help. We decided to wait a few months before starting, mostly because I was in nursing school and we wanted to make sure I would graduate before having a baby so we wouldn't have any conflicts but also because it wouldn't be covered by insurance and would cost $500 for every round we had to do so we wanted some time to save up for that specifically. However, two months before we were going to start, I found out I was pregnant all on our own and completely by accident. After 898 days, God had finally answered our prayers for a child so the name seemed appropriate to celebrate our journey to him and all the emotional ups and downs we had gone through to get there.

Oliver

This is a French baby name meaning "the olive tree." Of course because it's French my husband thought it was too girly and soft of a name. He also didn't want his son to have the same name as, according to him, "the grumpy Green Arrow." However, despite the fact that Oliver Queen is often brooding and going back and forth on his morals and direction in life, he is resilient and no matter how bad things get he continues to fight and keep moving forward no matter the situation which is something our baby desperately needs, especially during his harrowing first few weeks of life. In the Bible the olive tree also signifies fruitfulness and beauty, which to me is significant because of our infertility issues but also because a lot of times I need to be reminded of the beauty in the everyday things that come with having a baby in the NICU for an extended period of time.

Beorn
I remember a particular date five and half years ago when my husband and I were dating. We were in a long-distance relationship and I had traveled to Auburn, AL to attend my husband's graduation from college. We had gotten milkshakes from Chick-fil-A and were going for a walk in a nearby park and just talking about the future which of course, for both us, included children. My husband, half joking and half serious, mentioned how he wanted to name his children after Lord of the Rings characters. This mortified me, however, because of how, despite my mom's best efforts to give us names that no one could make fun of, I was still bullied in middle school for other things about my personality and lifestyle. This left a lasting mark for me and made me not want to make my children easy targets for other kids, which I felt one of those names could do. After a discussion about it, we came to our first compromise (that I can at least remember) of our relationship - I would have the final say on first names and he would have the final say on middle names. Because of this we decided we wanted our first boy's middle name to be Beorn, a character in J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit who could turn into a bear. Beorn is also an Old English word for "a warrior, a hero, a man of valour" which, unknown to us, would be something our son would need to be to make it through life. And, from this middle name, also came my nickname for him, Judah Bear.

Overall we felt he needed some strong names to get him through what promised to be, if he survived birth, a harder life than any person should have to have. We also wanted it to reflect, however, God's love and promises and overall, his miracles, as our sweet boy is definitely one (only the fourth baby with his condition to survive and the first boy). Even though his name is long and kind of a mouthful, we believe it is the name he was meant to have and also has helped remind us that God requires our praise no matter the situation as well as his grace and
provision in this situation.

It takes a literal village to raise a NICU child and Judah has been no different with all his nurses and doctors and all the people who have prayed for him and sent him gifts and well wishes. We would not be where we are today without our village and ask that you continue to support him as we face our day-to-day challenges of not only keeping him alive but helping him to thrive.