How She Got Her Name

The first part of this post will be sad but the sad part is necessary to get to how she got her name. I have two older sisters – the oldest has 4 children, 2 boys and 2 girls, and the middle has 2 children, 1 boy and 1 girl. I was beyond happy and excited as each of my nieces and nephews entered this world and I am close to all of them. I bestowed on each of them my own special nickname and frequently call them by those nicknames – in public.And the kids don’t mind! In order of birth they are, Beaner, Super Chunk, Peanut, Minnie-Me, Kaboom and Goat-Butt. With a tiny bit of training (LOL), if you ever ask any of them who their favorite person in the world is, they will tell you Aunt Dawn. That may not actually be the truth, but they’ve been coached well. They are all growing up now and making their way towards adulthood but the special and close relationship I have to all of them has only grown deeper with each new year. In April 2008, the worst possible thing to ever happen to our family happened. My oldest niece, Emily, my sweet Peanut, died in a car accident. She was 15. I have never felt such pain and heartbreak as I do over the loss of that sweet girl. Not even the pain of infertility came close. I remember begging God to let her come back to us even if that meant I could never be a mother in return. We all miss her terribly every single day.

When it became known in July of 2008 that Reagan’s birth parents had chosen us, the gender of the baby to be was not yet known. I had always pictured having a little boy although my preference was either gender. Names of course had already been mulled over countless times in hopes that a child would become ours so the name I thought I would definitely be using for a girl was Kassidy. I loved it and no other name seemed to be better out of the 1000s in the baby name books. We had some other girl names on our short list but I felt certain that Kassidy would be the one chosen. Everyone was having fun guessing what the gender might be and most people were saying boy.

As I was driving down the highway alone late one night, I got this overwhelming peaceful feeling about baby to be. In my head I heard – The baby is a girl and her name is Reagan Emily. At the time, in the moment, I just knew it was right. I also knew that my beautiful niece had been orchestrating from heaven and had not only helped to guide my child to me but had also chosen for her the perfect name.

When I began to announce to the world that I knew the baby was a girl and that her name was Reagan Emily, others were perplexed a bit since Reagan wasn’t a name on the short list and hadn’t ever even been mentioned before. To those close to me, those who knew about Emily, I simply said – Emily named her and Emily knows it is a girl.

A while later, at the anatomy scan which occurred late in the pregnancy, I realized I was holding my breath when the gender was being checked. Of course it showed girl and of course on the day she was born everyone could only say – oh wow, her name fits her perfectly.

So thank you my Peanut, for guiding Reagan to us and for giving her the most wonderful name. We love you and miss you every day.  Please keep watching over her.