What's in a name?

Some people seem surprised when we tell them that we named the two children we lost. It is easier for people to understand with Elisa, because she was 28 weeks, she looked like a baby and could have survived at 28 weeks, had she not had IUGR. But especially with Luca, the baby that we miscarried I can tell people are, at times, surprised.

Miscarriage/pregnancy loss/infancy loss is a very difficult, very personal thing, so there are many reasons why some people may choose to name their baby(ies) or choose to not name their baby(ies). If any one is reading this who chose not to name their baby(ies) know you made the right choice for you, and you should't be swayed by how another loss mom is handling this.

If by reading this though, you changed your mind and wished you had named your baby(ies) then there is no reason why you can't do it now.  There is nothing wrong with deciding to give you baby a name months, years. decades after they have gone.  Do what ever you feel is right for you and your baby.

Now for us, naming Luca, and Elisa was very important, and I want to share why, and I want to share the meaning behind their names.

Most parents, when they talk about their living children, get the opportunity to explain why they named their child, at least right after birth, if not many times later on in life.  But Mark and I don't get that opportunity very often, so we are doing it here.

~Luca Adriana~

When we found out we were pregnant in June of 2013, we started dreaming of what that baby would be. We didn't know if it was a boy or a girl, so we just referred to the baby as "little bean".

We didn't get the chance to know if this baby was a he or she, but both Mark and I had a strong feeling she was a she.  Although we as parents didn't get a chance to parent her as we wished we could have, we wanted to at least give her a name.We started looking online for names that could go either way, and as we did we found Luca.

Luca,
Means light. We thought about how much light and joy she brought to us in the short 11 weeks where we knew of her existence.

Luca,
Or as the town is spelled Lucca, is the town in Italy where my grandfather's family was originally from.  It was one of our favorite places when we went to Italy, calm and peaceful, and beautiful.

We thought this name was perfect.  It had meaning, and also in a silly way, made us feel like we would be right either way if she was a boy or a girl.

We chose Adriana as her middle name, because it could easily be Adrienne, which could be a boys name, and because Adriana means darkness.

Luca Adriana, our light in our darkness.  So much sadness in losing her, and knowing she would't  grow with us here on this earth, but light in the hope and joy she brought in her short little 11 weeks of life.

In the years since we lost Luca, I have been more and more grateful that we named her.  Yes, I myself even feel uncomfortable saying her name sometimes. She was only here for a short 11 weeks, and losing her has caused so much pain, that my mind, and my body often try to trick me in to thinking she didn't exist.  But by naming her, I am reminded, she did exist, and she is my daughter.

Also from a piratical standpoint, it is so much easier for me/us to talk about our loss, to family, to friends, to doctors even, to refer to her as a person rather than "a loss". Especially since we never fathomed we would have another loss, we never thought we would have to distinguish between two.  It is so much easier to say "before we lost Luca", or "while I was pregnant with Luca", rather than "before our first loss" or "while I was pregnant with the first baby that we lost"


~Elisa Josephine~

Elisa was a name Mark and I fell in love with just a few years after we got married.  It quickly became top of the list for our first daughter's name.  Since we didn't know for certain if Luca was a boy or a girl, we chose her a name that could go either way, so if we were wrong, we would still be kind of right :)

We first discovered the name Elisa when we were in Italy in May of 2012.  It was our last trip we were taking before we were going to start a family...if only we knew then what we knew now we wouldn't have been so worried about "what if it happens quickly"...

We were in the town of Lucca.  We were sitting at a park in the middle of the old Italian town, and on the street sign we saw Via Elisa (Elisa street).  We saw the name and Mark and I both said "I love that name!!  We loved the sound of it, and thought it was a perfect mix of Elsa (Mark's mom name) and Alice (my mom's middle name)

We took this picture, and happily joked that it would one day hang in our future daughters room.

After Elisa was diagnosed, we flip flopped back and forth on if we would name her the name we picked for our first born daughter.  We went a different route with Luca's name because we didn't know if she was really a boy or a girl, and I wanted something that could go either way. But, with Elisa, we knew she was a she.  After a lot of contemplation we realized even if she didn't live, we would always think of her as Elisa, the name just stuck.

We chose her middle name as Josephine because it is a family name.  It is  my middle name (but my middle name is Josephine in Italian) named after my grandfather's mother.

So she became Elisa Josephine, our little Ellie Jo.

We miss them both dearly, but we are glad we have names for them both.  Names to remind us every day the happiness they brought us when they were with us, names to honor them now that they are gone.

Luca Adriana and Elisa Josephine, just words, but words that mean the world to me