What's In a Name?

Someone recently asked me what the most exciting part of pregnancy was. I had to think about that for a bit because there are truly so many amazing things that happen during pregnancy. In my opinion picking out a name for our little one has truly been the highlight. I was one of those people who didn't want to name the baby until he/she arrived. That completely changed when we sat there in the ultrasound room and they told us we were having a baby girl. Aaron looked at me and we both just knew our Olivia Dahl Pena was in there.

Take us back a year and a half ago when I was student teaching and I would have told you having kids was the last thing on my mind, but like most couples you still can't help talk about names of your future children. I remember pushing some kids on the swings one recess and the cutest little girl came up and asked me to push her. They kept calling her "livy" and I couldn't stop thinking about that name. I came home and told Aaron about the most adorable little girl named Olivia and they called her "livy" or "liv". We were both in love with the name. In the future we would have a girl named Olivia, it was settled. Now was the hard part, a middle name. I have always wanted to give my children middle names and I wanted them to mean something to our family. As I sat there reading The Twits by Roald Dahl to my second grade class it hit me, DAHL. Roald Dahl was Aaron's favorite author growing up and honestly how cute did Olivia Dahl or Livy Dahl sound? I couldn't wait to get home to share it with Aaron. Of course he loved it. So in Oct. 2012 we already had a named picked out for our future daughter.

When we found out we were pregnant we automatically started thinking of baby names. If it was a girl (well we didn't even have to think about that because we already knew), but it we were having a boy?!?!? We could not think of a name that we both liked for a boy. Some names sounded good one day and the next we were like "what were we thinking?" Before we had the ultrasound we talked about a few more names. I don't know why we felt like we needed to know the name when we went in there. Aaron made the comment "I don't know why we are even talking about boy names cause I just know we are having a girl". Deep down I did too. As we sat there awaiting to hear what out little human was with tears in our eyes, the radiologist asked us if we had any last guesses and with an unanimous "it's a girl". We were reassured our guess was right and Aaron turned to me and said "Olivia Dahl Pena" and I just knew we were meant to have a girl from the moment we decided her name.

We can't wait to meet our Livy Dahl.

Another shoutout to Kim Hansen for taking our pictures.