Your Baby’s Name is What?!?

Sometimes, I think of the “Working Towards Conceiving” as one big board game. You roll the dice, you pick up cards (“Insemination Failed – go back 3” or “You Actually Know When You’re Ovulating This Month – Go ahead 1”), you very often get sent back to start but hopefully, somehow, you will end the game knocked up and/or holding a baby. Mind you – I’m not going to actually market this game as losing it would be too sucky but you get the idea.

Along the way, while I play “So You Want To Have A Baby!”, there have been events that have occurred that just seem to fit into a board game mentality. People, places and things that seem so silly that only Mattel or Parker Brothers could have come up with them. These days, it’s the fact that very close friends of ours can’t figure out what to name their 3-month-old baby.

Believe it or not (I know I still don’t), I’ve read my share of articles on “baby name regret”. This is when someone names their kid a name, puts it on the birth certificate, and sends out the announcement only to realize they hate what they named their baby. It apparently happens rather often but I just never wanted to believe it to be true. It just seems to… well… stupid.

In the last few weeks however, our friends Jeff and his wife, Karen, have informed us that they are not sure they like the name they gave their second kid. They are trying out a new name for the next couple of weeks and seeing if they like it better. This means that no one, including the baby, knows what his name is. Fantastic.

I know it’s never beneficial to compare yourself to others but in a series of events that feel specifically designed to torture and annoy me, I’m now adding this latest development to the list. I have been exhausting every possible resource I have to have one kid; a kid that I already have both the first name and middle name for whether it’s a boy or a girl and these people have two kids and can’t figure out what to call the latest. How nice for them.

Look – this is not a Cabbage Patch Doll. This is a human being. Pick a name and stick with it for crying out loud. The way things are going, I’m not entirely sure that after a few months, they aren’t going to change their minds again and decide they want a name that’s more topical to current news events. Heck, they may even decide they don’t like the first kid’s name anymore either. As a parent, nothing is more important than showing commitment and if you can’t even commit to a name, what the hell good are you?

Maybe it’s judgmental. Maybe I’m being unfair. Maybe you think of a name, really feel it’s the bees knees and then you see the kid and you’re like, “Sebastian! He’s not a Sebastian. He’s more of a Reginald!” I don’t know. I’ve never had a baby (and thanks for bringing that up) but I just can’t wrap my head treating your child’s name the same way you wear a mood ring. “It’s blue. No wait, it’s purple. No… it’s really more of a mauve.”

Perhaps I’m overreacting to all this but I’m beat down. Jackson Polyp (my uterine polyp) and Aunt Flo (my bitchy period) have coupled up and are now kicking my ass as a unified unit. I’m bleeding heavily, my cramps are killing me, I’m getting migraines and I’m growing more and more anxious about my surgery next week. Will it hurt? Will it help? Why does removing a polyp entail words like “vacuum” and “scrape”? Can’t we say “exfoliate” and “massage”? I’m not going to a hospital. I’m going to a spa for woman parts. GO WITH ME ON THIS.

Overall, I simply can’t deal with the “We’re not sure what we’re calling our kid” card. I can’t. I’m dangerously close to putting down the board game, taking my playing piece and going the hell home. If I can name my polyp and my period, you can figure out what to call your child. End of story.