And His Name Shall be Called...

It's really hard to pick your child's name. There's a lot of pressure in choosing something so permanent for someone else. It's even harder when you and your husband don't agree on the matter. Since even before we were married we talked about what names we liked. Inevitably one of us would have some sort of negative association with a name the other one liked or the name was too common for our either of us to agree to. If we ever came to a consensus on liking one (meaning I liked it and Isaiah didn't hate it) then I would write it down on a sticky note. After about a week I'd look at the list and cross out half of them because I didn't like them anymore. I'd read the list back to Isaiah and he'd eliminate a few more because he didn't like them anymore. Somewhere along the line "Evan" joined the list as did "Miguel", which was after a boy I knew in D.C. (I thought we could get away with naming our son Miguel if the baby came out dark like Isaiah.)

This battle continued for months while I was pregnant with Evan.

In the meantime we were getting bugged by so many people demanding to know the name of our unborn son. To appease them we decided to call the fetus "Walter." This, in turn, bugged everyone else who knew we wouldn't actually name a child Walter.

After our first ultrasound we found out that Evan was a boy and also that he had spina bifida. We went home and cried a lot and prayed a lot. I really felt like I wanted to have a specific name to pray for when talking to the Lord about my son. I looked over the list and really like the name "Evan Michael", or Evan Miguel. I asked Isaiah and he seemed indifferent. I told him that unless he told me he hated it then I would start calling our baby Evan. The name was basically decided when I was 19 weeks along, though we didn't tell ANYBODY (much to their dismay).

Just 5 weeks later I was on a flight to California to prepare for fetal surgery. My mom dropped me off at the airport (Isaiah would join later) and gave me a letter from my dad. I tucked it away and read it that night as I was getting ready for bed. The last line said, "P.S. I think the baby's name should be Evan. I looked it up and it means 'God is good.'"

When I told Isaiah about this he thought I had spoiled the secret. I thought that HE had spoiled the secret. In later conversations my dad would keep saying things like, "I think Evan is going to be okay..." but Isaiah and I would try to blow it off and say, "Yeah, Walter will be fine..." It became a running joke that my dad would call Evan, "Evan" since clearly he couldn't know the name since we hadn't told anyone.

A couple days before Evan was born Isaiah and I were again discussing names in the hospital room. I told him, "You know, I wouldn't totally hate the name 'Evan Walter'." At that point the name Walter was so fixed in our minds that it kinda sounded right to my pregnant brain. My wise and logical husband said, "Do you really want that?" I said no. We both thought we should stick with Evan Michael.

On the day Evan was born, when we finally told my parents that we chose the name "Evan Michael Hudson," we all cried. I told them we had chosen that name long before my dad wrote the letter. He said he had been praying when he felt inspired that "Evan" was our son's name. It confirmed to me that we really had chosen the right name.