What's in a name?

I don't know why, but for me naming babies is really hard. I want their name to be perfect. I feel like it's the first thing people know about you so it needs to be just right. Naming our sweet Abigayle turned out to be quite the task.

We decided to wait on even thinking about names until we knew the gender. We figured it didn't really matter until then anyway. We were elated when we found out we were having another girl and figured coming up with a name wouldn't be too hard. Turns out every name I liked, Dave didn't and every name he liked, I didn't. Around June we really started praying about her name. At one point Dave threw around Abigail but I knew one of my brothers really liked that name and should he decide to have kids one day, I figured he'd want to use it. Weeks went by and we still had nothing. I remember laying in bed one night in July, feeling like a terrible mother for not having any idea what to name my baby. Dave and I prayed together about it and he fell asleep. I laid there awake for a while and as I started to drift off to sleep I remember distinctly thinking, 'I can see driving in the car one day with Norah and Abby in the back seat'. I also remember thinking about her bedroom and telling a visitor to "just go use Abby's room". I felt such a peace that night as I drifted off to sleep. The next day I told Dave so we decided to start calling her Abigail and see how we felt about it. For about a month we called her that, just the two of us, and I really liked it. However, I was still really torn because I knew my brother liked the name.

I honestly don't know why my brother liked the name so much, I should probably ask him. However, when we were kids, I was about 8 so he would have been 9, my mother was pregnant and lost the baby around 23 weeks. I remember the afternoon my parents told us the baby had died; my dad had an envelope that he opened and it revealed that the baby was going to be a girl. I was thrilled! I never had a sister, and even though I lost this one, I was still excited to have one. Her name was going to be Abigayl.

I called my brother I think 3 times between July and giving birth to Abby, talking to him over and over about possibly using "his name". I didn't want to steal it from him, but I also really wanted to use it. I really felt like God wanted us to name her that. My sweet brother, who probably thinks I am a little crazy, graciously said he didn't mind if we used it. He said he had always liked the name and always thought of naming his baby that, but he didn't know if he and his wife would even have kids, let alone a girl, so he told me to take it. I remember one conversation with him and feeling such a relief after talking to him.

By now you have probably seen that I have spelled the name a few different ways; which brings us to the way we chose to spell it. I knew when we named this baby I wanted to name her after my mom somehow. I love my mom and really wanted to honor her in this way. Her middle name is Gayl so we wanted to tie it in. Since my little sisters name would have been spelled, "Abigayl" we wanted to use my mom's name but not use the same spelling as my sister would have used. Then comes the "e". I always thought my mom spelled her middle name "Gayle" anyway. I didn't know she spelled it differently until about a year ago. So, that's how our sweet Abigayle got her name, and her unique spelling of it. We love it and think it's beautiful, just like her.