There's something about a that name...

Emily Claire and Jack Robert.  They were the twins I was sure I was having.  Emily and Jack playing on their plastic Alligator See-Saw.  Aren't they cute? 

Not quite.  So Jack is a girl.  A girl we hadn't even thought of a name for.

I was on labor and delivery being admitted to the hospital when I began to have serious bleeding.  All of the sudden, everything changed.  Doctors and nurses were running in and out of my room, the monitors were going off.  I began having huge contractions and I finally realized at that moment that the babies might actually be born that day.

I was started on I.V. Magnesium for contractions, fluids for blood loss, and given steroids to develop the babies' lungs.  They were doing everything they could to keep them in a few more days.  It was terrifying.  Twelve years ago, about 1/2 of the babies born at 26 weeks survived.  I knew that I could lose one or both of them.  As the day wore on, my contractions settled and the babies seemed to be maintaining their heart rates.  After we made it through that first day, it became a waiting game.

I was placed on complete bed rest.  There are no words to describe how much I hated not being able to get up.  I couldn't wash my hair or go to the bathroom.  I could only sit up for meals.  Everything started to ache after a few days.  My stomach was tender from the monitors constantly pressing into it; I had I.V.'s and that awful steroid injection.  Man, that thing hurt.  The magnesium makes you feel...I'm not sure what the word is, maybe disconnected.  It causes hot flashes and muscle weakness.  I found myself sitting for hours watching the monitors, exhausted from doing nothing.  I had a few visitors, but we were fairly new to the area and didn't know many people. 

The hardest part of the 10 days all of those treatments bought us were the days Hannah came to visit. I had never been away from her for more than a day or two. I missed her so much, and even though I was doing what I needed to do for the babies, being away from her was terrible. I wasn't much of a crier, except when she left my hospital room in the evenings, I couldn't help it. We were being very brave, but it wore on us all.

I thought of the babies a lot as we waited.  We had named Emily weeks before, but we couldn't think of a name for Baby B.  I felt horribly guilty.  I felt bonded to Emily calling her by name.  She seemed so real to me.  Baby B felt real too, but not in the same way.  She needed a name.  Jeff came to the hospital one night after work for a quick visit, I think there was a playoff game on (this is January), and he wanted to go watch it.  I started to cry about the baby not having a name.  I thought she would die with no name.  It was the saddest thing I could think of.  She could be born and die as Baby B.  It sounded like Jane Doe to me. 

So, he stayed and we hashed out names.  I'm sure it went much faster because that game was on.  We had discussed Abigail before and I didn't like it.  Somehow that night it seemed right.  **Cheesy Moment Alert**  I loved Little House on the Prairie.  There was an episode when Caroline wanted a boy, but had a girl and Laura says "we were all truly blessed by the coming of baby Grace".  I had secretly wanted a baby Grace from then on.  So Abigail Grace came to be that night.  Jeff left to watch his game and I wrapped my arms around my belly and called my girls by name as I promised Emily Claire and Abigail Grace that I would do everything I could to keep them safe. 

Do you know that the concordance in my bible offers eighty nine references to the word "name"?   Eighty nine times, someone's name was called, changed, or written in the book of life.  God even named his own son (can you see God pouring over baby names....no, I don't think so)  He was to be and is Jesus. There's something about that name.  Master, Savior, Counselor, Friend, Lord, King, Exalted One, Holy, Son of God, Redeemer, The Christ.  Calling on His name saves us from sin, guides and directs us.  We pray in his name; ask in his name.  That one word and all it represents brings us before the throne of God.  Jesus.  It's really beyond me how very important that name is.

Names are important to God and to each other.  My babies needed names because it was then that I knew them.  I wrote them when they were born and it was official, unchanging.  Those are the names that are written in the book of life.  They are the names that helped me to say welcome to those little girls, and if I needed to, I would have called them by name to say good-bye.  I have an awesome God that called me by name too, because it was then that I knew him. 

John 10:3, 14-15
The watchman opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice.  He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.
I am the good shepherd, I know my sheep and my sheep know me-just as the Father knows me and I know the Father- and I lay down my life for my sheep.