Naming this little boy has been the most perplexing issue I faced as a pre-mom. There have been about five names that I grew up loving and dreaming about since I was a little one, and then bam- I'm pregnant and none of these names feel right! OR my wonderful husband hates them all with a passion.With this pregnancy I'd say none of the physical changes or adjustments compare to the gut wrenching attempt in finding the one name that is going to identify your child for life! It's crazy! Looking at naming web sites filled with thousands of ideas was the most boring task in the world. I needed a word that grabbed me. Something special.
And then I went through the stage of "what if my baby hates the name?" I didn't particularly love my name. It didn't seem feminine enough. And then there were about 7 other Amber Nicoles sitting right next to me in class. I remember thinking "if only my name were spelled 'Ambur' or 'Ambar', or I had a cooler middle name". Maybe everyone goes through that stage as a kid, I don't know. But I started to remember all of those little details as I was trying to think up the perfect name. So I knew that it couldn't be just another run of the mill 'John' name that's on the top 10 of baby names.
If you know Justin with this whole baby naming issue he avoided it like the plague. Our roles in baby naming was for me to come up with the lists and for him to pick from the list, unfortunately he never liked my lists so it was a vicious cycle. He didn't want to sit down and look at books or websites he just wanted to be the one who makes the final choice.
With that being said, A couple of months ago we took a drive to see my parents in Portsmouth. I knew that I had an approximate hour and a half of solid undivided attention from Justin so I took the opportunity to pack the car down with the top baby naming books and printed sheets from baby naming websites so Justin would have no other choice but sit there in the car and listen to the names that I was reading aloud..It was a genius plan.
So it began, and I went through a good solid 10 pages before I reached the point of frustration when Justin could not even consider one of the names in the book... So I decided to stop reading out of defeat.
We then just started talking about our plans for the weekend while we were down visiting my family. I mentioned visiting my grandma- and then somehow that led me into a story about my time as a little child visiting with my grandma and Grandpa Avery. If you know anything about me, it's that I am extremely close to my grandma, and was also close with my grandpa before he passed in 95. I would spend weeks visiting them as a child. At that moment as I am storytelling, Justin stops me and goes "What about Avery? I like Avery for a boy!"
I must admit though, at first I was hesitant with the name Avery for a boy because it has become one of those unisex names that I have seen little girls with, but I knew that 'Avery' was a special name, a family name! THE name for our little boy! Justin loved it, I especially loved it... But we did decide to hold off on making a final decision about any name until later in the pregnancy-At least until we knew what the gender was. On Oct. 1st after finding out that our little Mac was a 'He' it was the first response out of Justin's mouth "Avery." So I knew right away what his name would be.
We later picked the middle name 'Grant' as it seemed like a strong male name..And Avery Grant seems to flow together nicely. Also Avery is far from the top 10 of boy baby names, it actually sits at the modest ranking of #216th for a boy.
So I am happy to announce that the future little Mac's name is Avery Grant MacQuarrie.
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