The Eternal Name

So, next week Wednesday is my 20 week ultrasound... and the day we find out if it's a boy or a girl. I recently wrote that I really wanted a boy and got very defensive for all the people I KNEW were thinking that I was a horrible person for wanting one sex over the other. But now I find myself wanting a girl, too (though I'm still sure it's a boy).

Mostly I feel very sad for the reason I want a girl. Doug's Grandma DeGraaf has Alzheimer's, and has very recently rapidly declined. I've always known her to be blissfully unaware, but HAPPY. Now, she's crying a lot and emotionally very unstable. Doug's grandpa promised her at the beginning of all this that he would never put her in a nursing home. But he can't take care of an 80 year old woman by himself. And so the decision was made that it was the best thing for her to be taken care of by others in a nursing home.

Doug is taking this pretty hard. ALL of his grandparents are still alive. And I know it's going to be hard on him when she passes. When he told me the news of his grandma, he agreed to the name I was considering for a girl, as long as her middle name was Marjorie (his grandma's first name-debate is still going about spelling).

Even though she's not my grandma... even if we never use the first name I was considering... even though I would never have otherwise chosen the middle name to be Marjorie , it feels RIGHT. And if Grandma doesn't make it to see this little child, I hope that there is always this familiar spark in him/her that makes us stop and smile for reasons we can't begin to understand.