It's not that I didn't suggest, oh, thousands of names. I had so many I loved, but none he would go for. One of the names that popped into my head one day was Briar. ("Her initials would be BJ," everyone would point out.) But Briar. I loved it. "Like Sleeping Beauty," I would argue against my husband's head shakes.
Her name wasn't Briar, but she was my Sleeping Beauty. "Sleeping Beauty" was the first thing I thought when they placed her in my arms. Sleeping Beauty. Briar.
We agreed on her name one day and I couldn't stop saying it because it was beautiful. It was on my list of names if Ethan was a girl, but I knew in my gut he wasn't and so I never thought about it much.
Wylie.
We decided we were going to keep her name a secret until her birth. There were only so many "like the Coyote?" jokes I could take. I had this instinctual feeling to protect her against taunting or teasing, this want to protect her dignity. Her name was perfect and dainty, elegant and earthy as she was in my heart. And who knew her better than the mother who was subjected to all those kicks and punches from the inside?
I've said it plenty of times before but Wylie was named after Wiley Wiggins, the actor who played Mitch Kramer in Dazed and Confused. People give me the side eye, but what can you expect from someone with a son named after Ethan Embry?
I will never know for certain if we will have more children, but we already have their names picked out. It took no time to agree on names for either sex. I have to wonder why it was so hard to choose Wylie's name. I wonder if I always just sort of knew she wasn't able to stay with us.
The nurse who helped us take Wylie's handprints and footprints for her baby book remarked that it was a beautiful name, a unique name, a special name for a beautiful little girl. It was perfect for her, my Wylie Meadow.
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