Her middle name...

When Claire was born we didn't name her right away. We were so overwhelmed and so distraught that the last thing on our minds was what we were going to name her. The next day, after leaving the hospital, we decided that we couldn't refer to her as Li'l Peanut for the rest of our lives and that she deserved a name. So Claire she became and we both felt great about having made the decision to give our daughter a name of her own.

We didn't give her a middle name.
I didn't think of it at the time.
She had a name and I was happy with it.

After time though I noticed that a lot of BLMs referred to their children using both their first and middle name and it made me start to feel a little bad that we had never given Claire a middle name too. If she had lived she would have been given one so it only seemed fair.

I didn't want to make an issue out of it so I put it to rest.

Well, a couple of days ago Andrew told me that him and the boys were talking about everyone's middle names and then they asked what Claire's was. I asked him how he responded and he said that he didn't really and the boys just moved on. I mentioned that in all of the turmoil we didn't really think of it and he said yes and no on his part. In his family it is tradition to give the child a middle name that honors a grandparent or other family member as a way of passing those names down and since she will never be able to pass it down he didn't feel it was right to do so... too sad of a thought. I thought about it for a minute or 2 and then suggested that we give her my maiden name as her middle name. I have always wanted to do so with one of our children (we had actually intended on using it if our Rainbow had been a boy). Andrew agreed right away, he thought is was a nice idea.

Another little piece to her life puzzle is filled (a little over 2.5 years later... better late than never, right?) And now if and when the subject comes up again we can share her full and complete name with the children...