'We need a name.' Dianne sighs, looking over at the screaming baby. She had been here two weeks, and she was no closer to the name. 'I don't want Ruby in the mix.' She tells him, Joe nodding in agreement.
'I don't either.'
'Do you remember how we chose Maddie's name?' Dianne smiles a little, looking between her partner and the baby.
'It was Ruby.' He grins. 'With that book?' She smirks, 'Did the other two suggest names?' She nods, as she shows him the list of names her kids suggested.
'Emily Sugg?' Dianne suggests, she's met with a shake of the head. 'She doesn't look like an Emily, does she?' Joe nods in agreement, neither had been keen on the name. 'Clearly she doesn't like the name.' She smiles, as the baby continues to cry.
'Daisy?' He suggests, 'No I don't like it.' He's started rocking her, but nothing is stopping her. He glances down at the list, there is about twenty names on it, crossing them off as they go. Before long, this list had dwindled down to five names: Freya, Ava, Amy, Grace and Emilia.
'I still don't like any of them.' She says, looking up at Joe. 'They just don't suit her, and she has to have this name for the rest of her life.'
'Let's leave it for today.' He states. 'We have a few weeks.'
'I just feel bad, when people ask me her name I don't know what to say. I know the health visitor thinks that we should have named her by now.' She tells him, she knew people were judging her. This should have been a happy occasion, she should have had all this prepared, or at least in the words. Instead, she buried her head in the sand until she was born, a form os self-preservation is the worst was to happen, maybe it wouldn't hurt nearly as much.
'When she gets old, she's going to ask us how she got her name.' Dianne says, after a small period of silence. 'How am I going to tell her that she didn't have a name.' Joe rolls his eyes, it didn't matter, they had six weeks to choose her name. They had only used two of them.
Three days later, they were still no closer to finding a name for her. The list had dwindled from five to three, Freya, Grace and Emilia. They had tried each of those names, today she was Grace. Maddie had joked that she would have an identity crisis by the time she is five, with the fact she has had more or less the same number of names, as she is days old.
The first name was Isobel, then she was Lucia, they tried Erin, Jess, Katie. None of them fitted, nor did Charlotte, Olivia or Megan. Amber, Felicity were soon forgotten. Dianne was getting stressed, Joe knew eventually they would get there, she would have a name before long. It just had to be the right name.
Theo's name had been from a baby book, they had been scouring the pages before he was born. He was the only one that they had been semi-prepared for. Ruby was hours before her birth, Maddie's was a few days. Baby girl, on the other hand, she was the longest they had gone without naming the baby. They referred to her as baby girl, but that couldn't be forever.
Dianne had hoped for a miracle, that a name would just pop into her head. With Theo, she had wanted to call him Americus, had he been a girl. Joe had shot that down, and he had done the same this time. He joked that she would be bullied, and Dianne had to agree. She may like it, but she didn't want her child to hate their name. Or worse still, resent her. The name had to fit into the fold, it had to go with her three other siblings.
It happened on the 21st day of her life, that the name popped into her head. She was feeding the baby, one of the few times she was quiet that day. She had been staring into her eyes, pulling a stupid face, not that she was able to comprehend what that was. Their eye barely make out shapes, at that age, but she was going to do it anyway.
She first suggested the name to Joe when he came home from work. At first, he was sceptical, the middle name threw him off a bit. The name wasn't a traditional name in some sense, it was a boy's name typically. Dianne had suggested that they could call her Amelia when she grew up, if she hated her name. He agreed to give it a chance, to see if she suited the name. Dianne agreed to this, promising if he didn't like it they would go back to the drawing board. By the end of the week, he fell in love with her name.
A/N Thoughts? Two updates in one night, I am inspired. This is probably helped by the fact that Joe spoke to me, and I've been fangirling from the moment it happened.
