Well . . . here it is!

I suppose this will be a bit anti-climactic, but I thought today was as good as any day to reveal the worst-kept secret in our adoption journey and that is real name of XY. This is a bit sad for me because I know this will mean the end of calling him XY, but since XY would be hard to pronounce anyways, we have to let it go.

We have been sharing the name with people very slowly, but I have tried to avoid putting it on the blog until we were ready to broadcast it to the world. (Thanks to the anonymous person who pointed out my slip-up the other day on the blog ... which I quickly edited and then deleted their comment!)

I thought that the best way to reveal the name would be to show a picture of the awesome cake Joia made for my last shower. Before the big celebration, Joia asked if it would be okay if she put his name on the cake. How fun! But then, following the party, we realized that neither of us could put pictures of the cake up on the blog lest we give away the secret. Joia did a good job not putting any pics of the cake on her blog but now that the secret is out, I can not only share the name but brag on her awesome cake-making abilities. Trust me when I tell you that this cake tasted as good as it looked! (Joia learned her cake-making abilities from her mom who made cakes for a business. I think Joia should do it too!)


So there it is. It's out and now I can't ever get it back. Little XY's real name will be Isaac John. I hope you like it. But if you don't, please don't tell us you don't. Just pretend and go on your merry way.

A few people, especially those really deep people in my life (KELSEY!) wanted to know why we chose the name we did. To be honest, as soon as we learned of the May-baby adoption, we chose our boy and girl names. Our current plan is to use the girl's name for our China daughter so we'll keep that one a secret for now too. But we knew our boy's name before we knew we were having a boy. There really wasn't a second or third choice. We just knew it was going to be Isaac.

Isaac has a lot of meaning for us and probably one of the best ways to explain it is through a post I wrote in November of 2006 entitled: My Isaac. If you don't feel like reading the long entry, let me quickly summarize by saying that during this period of our infertility journey, I was dealing with the fact that I had to give the Lord everything in my life. I had to be willing to give him, as Abraham did, the thing in my life that I wanted more than anything. I had to be willing to tell him that I would give up being a biological or adoptive mother if that's what the Lord wanted from me.

I can still vividly remember the night JB and I had this conversation. All through my infertility journey I had my "ace up the sleeve" and adoption was the granddaddy of all of them. Adoption was something I could control. I could have a child if I wanted one through adoption. Sign my papers, pay my money, and leave with a child. Unlike biological children, something I could not control, I could control adoption which meant I was "guaranteed" parenthood in some form or fashion. But that evening, John asked me if I was willing to give it ALL up for the Lord. I have never cried as hard as I did that night. I wasn't willing. No way. But from that night on I knew I had to try.

During the next year and a half, we would face another failed IVF, take a trip to Africa, and move to Eglin. I also began a personal goal to give the Lord everything in my life including all dreams of motherhood. I am not sure I completely got there, but I was getting close. And just like Abraham, who was asked to sacrifice the child he had waited decades to have, at the last second God said, "Never mind." God asked Abraham to give up Isaac. God asked me to give up motherhood. Motherhood was my Isaac. And just when I had reached a point that I was willing to sacrifice it, God's voice pounded through and directed me to a ram in the thicket. A child after all. Originally, that was the decision to adopt through China. But the Lord had even better plans and would give me an opportunity to have a newborn!

Anyways, I didn't mean to go off on that big of a tangent. The original post I did in 2006 says all that. But that's why we chose Isaac. It means "laughter" and just the thought of Isaac coming to our home to be our son has brought laughter back into the walls of our home. Just the thought of his presence had brightened our days beyond measure.

As for the middle name, John. Well, that's a given I think. We felt it important, especially because he was adopted, that he knew how important he is. And how can you feel more important than to get your father's name? This means that even if someday, we are blessed with a biological son, it will be our first child, Isaac, that will bear his father's name. That's exciting to us.

So there it is. Isaac John. So long XY. You served us well.