Alice?

I started talking baby names almost from the moment I saw the plus sign on the pregnancy test. I don’t even remember all the names we discussed but fairly early on we decided on Samara Emeline for a girl and Camon Antonio Andrès for a boy. Tony was convinced that we were having a girl (as did everyone else I came into contact with save 4 people…I never even had a chance to form my own opinion…but I digress). So every night when we would have prayer before bed, Tony prayed for Samara. A little over halfway through the pregnancy I freaked out… “What if it’s a boy and he hears you call him Samara all the time?” That didn’t deter Tony. There was no discussion. The baby was a girl.

By this time everyone in my family knew the endearing story of our night time prayers. And they too, started referring to the baby as Samara.

One month before my due date, in a pregnancy hormonal moment, I became bugged that when we had this baby, if it indeed was a girl, there would be no surprises…everyone would know what we planned to name it. I thought we should choose an alternate name just in case we wanted to go for the shock. So we started talking baby names AGAIN.

The boy name was easy, Sabin Antonio Andrès. We wanted to stick with the two middle names because that had been Tony’s birth name.

I have never been one to like common names. My middle name was not common and I loved that no one else had it. So I wanted to carry that on with my children. Tony on the other hand loved the name Brittany. I hated it. In part because it was overused but mostly because didn’t look like it sounded. So I started fooling around with different spellings (my baby name book only had one alternative, Brittni, which I thought was dumb.) I came up with Britnee and Tony liked it. Now on to find a middle name.

I was a Home Interior displayer at this time and one day while I was doing some training at my manager’s house, she was showing me some new products. One being a spool of Rose Moirè ribbon. Rose Moirè. Wow, that sounds like Rose Marie with a slight twist. I like it!

I went home that night and asked Tony what he thought of Britnee Moirè? “No daughter of mine will EVER be named Moirè!” I didn’t scream, I didn’t cry, I didn’t whine. I simply said the name over and over and over again during the course of the next few weeks. It finally grew on him. And because of this, I graciously decided that HE should be the one to make the final call on the baby’s name when it was born.

June 5, 1995, a little 7 lb 7 oz girl made her debut into the world. We had some complications during delivery so the pediatrician was called in immediately. Everything around me was chaos. Tony left to go watch them work on Britnee and talk to our families. Dr. Walvish came into the room a couple hours later and started talking to me about what was going on. He asked if the baby had a name. I told him her daddy was supposed to do the honors. He couldn’t believe I was leaving that decision up to Tony. When Tony finally came back to my room, I told him, “You have to decide quick what her name is because Dr. Walvish is calling her Alice!” It didn’t take Tony long to say he thought she looked like a Britnee. So Britnee Moirè it was.

And that is how baby number one got her name.

…to be continued.