The ABC’s of Me

H

Hannah

 

I told myself when I started this that I wasn't going to take the easy way out and use Daryl and the kids for any of the letters.  And even though technically I'm using Hannah, I'm really not.  Make sense?  Let me explain.

 

See this handsome guy below?  When I was pregnant with him, I poured over baby name books and came up with the names that  I liked.  If he was a boy, he would be Joshua Walton.  If he ended up being a girl, he'd be Hannah Kathleen.

Well, you see how that turned out.  My only  boy.  Needless to say, we did not name him Hannah.

 

So when I got pregnant with this beauty, I looked through the baby name books again.  If she was a boy, I had no clue.  Maybe Luke, maybe Jonathan.  If she were a girl, her name was going to be

Hannah Kathleen.  Hannah because I still loved it, and Kathleen after my sister.  But then I saw her on the ultrasound, and I thought, "There is my princess!"  Hannah didn't seem right any more.  Sarah means "princess."  And there you go...Sarah Kathleen.

Then, surprise!!!!!  Here came girl #2.  And she was going to be Hannah Pauline.  Hannah, because I still loved it and Pauline, because it was my grandmother's name.  But then when we were going through the baby book name and we couldn't agree.  My husband at the time didn't like Hannah anymore, so we went through the book and circled the ones we liked.  The only one we both liked was Madeline.  Madeline Pauline.

(btw, she hates her name.  She doesn't like Madeline, says it sounds too "old."  And that Pauline is just strange.  I keep telling her what an honor it is to be named after her grandmother, but she doesn't really remember her, so doesn't really agree!)

Fast forward 9 years.  We had been trying for #4 for 3.5 years.  I was frantic.  What was wrong with me?  I had always gotten pregnant so easily...why was God doing this to us?  My husband, on the other hand, was quite confident and calm.  "I am fully confident that we will have a baby.  It isn't a "no" from God, it's a "wait."  And of course, he was right.  It was a resounding WAIT.  After we had learned to be married to each other, defined our family of five, done some work for the Lord, some work on ourselves (OK, on myself) we got pregnant not even trying.  When we found out it was a girl, there was never a question.  She would be Hannah.  First it was going to be Hannah Grace.  Hannah because, well, you know...I still loved it, and the irony of Hannah in the Bible praying for so long for a child.  Grace because of God's mercy and grace in answering our prayers.  Then Daryl's sister, Denise, had a recurrence of her cancer.  I was awed and humbled by her grace and strength and faith in the Lord during it all, and I knew there could be no greater honor to us than to name our baby after her.  Finally my Hannah.

Hannah Denise.

And just because I couldn't NOT have a picture of Charlotte after having pictures of all the rest...

Charlotte Elaine.