Quinn's name

It took me 2 years after Hayden was born to get pregnant again.

Not that we actually were trying for 2 years. Brian wouldn't agree to start trying again until Hayden was about 15 months old. I didn't get pregnant again until he was 2. So it took about 8 months, then I had a miscarriage, then I got pregnant with Quinn right after.

When people would ask me how many kids I wanted I never had a definite answer. I just knew I didn't want to have any girls. Girls are hormonal, they cause drama. I was positive that having all boys would be nothing but fun.

Sometime before I got pregnant again, I got the feeling that my next child would be a girl. In fact, when I finally did get pregnant I was positive we were having a girl. So positive that we didn't even discuss boy's names. My mom, who sometimes gets inspiration as to what gender her next grandchild will be, was also positive my next child would be a girl, so positive that she knitted Quinn's blessing dress before she was ever conceived.

I mentioned in my post about Hayden that Brian and I start going back and forth with names from the very beginning. We usually turn down most of the suggestions from each other. I know Brian suggested Kathryne and Scarlett. Scarlett was the name we agreed on before we found out Hayden was a boy. Unfortunately for Brian, since Hayden was born, two of my friends had named their baby girls Scarlett. And I don't like common names. So Scarlett was off the short list.

One name I had told Brian in the past that I absolutely loved was Maeve. It's Irish and it means intoxicating. When I suggested it to Brian he turned it down. What's new? We were always shooting the other person's suggestions down. I remember one night, standing in the bathroom, getting ready to go somewhere when Brian said "Maeve."

I stopped in my tracks "What about Maeve?"

"For the baby."

"Don't mess around, you know I love that name." I said

He was serious. I don't know why he changed his mind after turning it down. We then started trying to figure out middle names, I still hadn't had the gender reveal ultrasound. We liked Maeve Elizabeth, or Maeve Arwen.

On July 1st we had our ultrasound that confirmed I was having a girl. I made sure it was ok with Brian to share with others the name we had picked out, it was. So we started telling people. A few people didn't like the name we picked out. They made their distaste known to us. I brushed it off. Brian didn't. I wasn't very happy but in the end we decided to go with a different name.

Brian has a show he likes called Sliders, the main character (a guy) was named Quinn Mallory. Brian mentioned when we still liked the name Maeve that he wanted to name a child (boy or girl) Quinn. I was a little bitter at Brian for changing his mind about Maeve (even though I later realized I did the same thing to him with Scarlett). I told myself that I wouldn't talk to him about names for a long time. I think we went a total of 2 days without talking about names when I told Brian I liked the name Quinn for a girl and we could name this baby Quinn if he wanted. But I got to pick the middle name. He agreed. We also decided we weren't going to tell anyone her name.

It took a few days to come up with a middle name. We went back and forth. Brian wanted her middle name to be Mallory. I shot that one down! The name had to be more than one syllable. I had liked the names Rose (after my great aunt) and Lynn (after my mom) but they didn't flow right with either Maeve or Quinn. I also didn't like names starting in vowels, they just didn't sound right with the n's at the end Quinn. Most of the names I considered started with an M. I finally got it narrowed down to two names. Madison, or Marleigh. Brian was ok with both. I don't know why but I started leaning towards Madison. A google search told me that Madison was made popular as a girl's name in the movie Splash. I loved that movie as a little girl. That google search clinched the name for me.

So Quinn Madison it was. We named our daughter after a male sci-fi character and a mermaid!