After the Adoption pt.1 - To choose a name

  So you've finally been called.  Years of preparation.  The tears fall fast, and the world starts spinning a whole lot faster.

 When you're on an adoption list - everything... I mean everything comes down to the call.  All of your emotions on a daily basis are all focused on that moment, that when you meet your new baby it all seems so surreal.
  We walked into the nursery at the Rockyview, literally about an hour after finding out we had a son, and there he was.  So we were now parents!  But our new son had no name.

    Lauren and I had talked about a number of names, but especially after years in waiting we went through a lot of different baby names.  When we first started the process of adoption we thought of a few names, then when the next year came some names faded - and some new ones came into the conversation.  Then the next year the same happened, and so on, etc.

  Then all of a sudden, you wake up one morning and you are walking into a hospital nursery meeting your new baby for the first time just hours after he is born.
  His name officially (and we would find out legally for some time) was simply "Baby Boy".  And we were in just simple awe of holding him the emotions were overwhelming, but then the topic of his name became right near the top of our list.

  So, Lauren and I reluctantly had to leave him at the hospital until the next day, and that night we spent a lot of time into the wee hours going over tons of names.  We reviewed our previous lists, and crossed off name after name. We agreed that we both had to love the name.  If one person wasn't in love with a name we crossed it off.

  It almost felt that after meeting him some of those names just didn't suit the little peanut!

  As we will talk about, the birthmother has always, and will always be an important part of this process.  But with parents through adoption, you never know if the birthmother wants to name the baby, or already has.  We found out that some adoptive parents actually then use that birthmother's name as the middle name as a respect to her and her family.  In our case though, there was no name passed to him.

  Lauren and I also had spoken about how the meaning of a name meant a lot to us.  Many people go back into their family tree to respect their heritage, but Lauren and I also thought that his name needed to signify the importance of our journey, the adoption, and the importance of *him*

  So we then both decided to choose the name "Owen".

  The name is derived in it's origins as being a person who is very charismatic, artistic, and a determined young fighter.  But our favorite meaning was an old Scottish derivative of the name Owen simply meaning - "Desired Child".

  And how appropriate is that?  About every bit as it could possibly be.

  One interesting thing that every new parent probably goes through, is not just choosing a middle name, but then having one that sounded good with the first and the last!  So going along the same theme of meaning, we came upon a German name of Faron, which simply meant "Journey".

  Owen Faron Burns, rolls off the tongue quite well don't you think?

  So that Saturday morning when we woke up (from what we now know as the last best sleep of our lives), we made our way to the hospital to bring our new son home.