It was roughly three years ago when our first sonogram showed not one – but TWO – heartbeats on the screen.
A handful of my closest friends were in on the news, and at some point I gave the babies “code names” so we could talk about them more freely.
Of course at the time we didn’t know the gender of the babies, so I assumed that one was a boy, and one was a girl.
As we were in the middle of the Democratic primary debates, I began calling one baby “Barack” and one baby “Hillary”.
We had all sorts of fun conversations about the elbows being thrown in there. And the best standing joke was, “Which one is on the left?”
We had our telling ultrasound at around 18 weeks, when I learned the genders of the babies. I came back to work, beaming at the thought of two healthy babies…and at the fun of telling my friends that we no longer had Barack and Hillary, but rather Hillary and Michelle [Obama].
It wasn’t long after that that Hubby and I decided on the girls’ names. [FYI: Baby A’s name actually starts with “A” and Baby B’s name actually starts with “B”.]
We weren’t keeping the names a secret, so “Hillary and Michelle” were soon replaced with the girls’ actual names.
It’s been a long time since I thought of my little ones so fondly in the context of political debates…but the memory definitely brings a smile (and a chuckle!).
Did your baby/-ies have code names in utero? Did you share their intended names before they were born?
Ticker
21 comments:
We actually called them A ans B foe the longest time ans then started using their real names. Olusola
I love it! So clever! I think presidential elections will always remind me of being pregnant and since the girls were born a couple of days after that big election, I think elections will mean something to them too. From the start I had a strong feeling we were having two girls and we always knew we would name a daughter after my husband's grandmother, but we didn't share the names before they were born. Curious...were you ever curious/worried that who you decided to be Baby A in utero would come out second? I remember thinking that if I had to have a c-section, what if they pulled out A first? Maybe that was just me!
oops...I meant, what if they pulled out Baby B first?
My babies were twin A and twin B for the longest time. Not very imaginative I know
My husband's name is Adam Van, so he liked to call them Adamina and Vanina. Mean, right? We shared their names before they were born since I am a monogram-loving girl. We named them alphabetically (Cam was A, Gray was B) and their names SO fit them. I can't imagine if their names were switched. I'm sure that's how you feel about if Baby B had come out first. :)
I totally forgot about our code names! We called them Horton and Pang Yang FuSu. The oddest names, but they have funny stories behind them. Thanks for reminding me of those fond memories!
I can't remember when we decided on names but before knowing the genders we'd say "the babies".
Then it was The Boy and The other one (since K wouldn't display her goodies). And then it was The Girl.
(yes, I'm so creative :) even now their stuffed animals are called Pink Puppy and Blue Puppy LOL)
Then when we decided on names we started calling them Connor and Kendra but I nearly slipped up talking about the kicking one day at work and so I went back to talking about them as The Boy and The Girl :)
My family is littered with twins (on both sides). On my mom's side, my great-granfather had twin sisters (they were the first twins), Edith and Ethel. So---our girls were Edith and Ethel till the day they were born (we kept their names a secret). Truth be told, we really DO like the name Edie (nickname of Edith), and if we had another girl, that just might be her name.
I havne't thought about that for awhile. Thanks for the memories, Mandy :)
This is great!! :-) Well as you know hubby is a fireman, so mine were hose A (like in Jose...get it?) and hose B. I know not too funny, but it was a big joke at Todd's station. No we did not keep their names a surprise. We actually made the name announcement at Christmas. Thanks for the walk down memory lane!! :)
We made up all kinds of silly names as we worked of trying to come up with the real ones. T chose Buba's name when I was about 7 weeks pregnant- before we knew about twins, before we knew about genders. He was convinced that this was the most perfect name for his child and was set that this would be the name whether we had a boy or girl. But he was also set that no one else would know the name until the child was born, and although I was desperate to tell a close friend to get her reaction, I kept my promise that I would not tell. Once we found out we were having twins, he gave be complete control over choosing Tiny's name. But it was so much harder than I'd thought it would be. I didn't chose her name until just after I was 34 weeks along (so much back story behind that), and we also didn't share her name until she was born. And I was so glad we did. My MIL didn't love the names instantly, but I think they've grown on her. (And, if not, that's just too bad!)
What a fun memory! I'm so glad you wrote about this.
With our first son, my SIL gave him his nickname. Before we had the big 20 wk ultrasound, she kept referring to my baby as 'it.' I finally had to tell her, "'It' is my baby, a fetus not a thing." She then began calling him 'Cletus the Fetus.' Terrible, isn't it? Because it is so awful, it stuck. Even after we told everyone it was a boy and we would name him William James, many people still called him Cletus. I let it go until he was born. Then I put my foot down. My son will not be called Cletus!
When we were pregnant with the quads, I knew from the beginning that if we had a boy in the mix, I wanted to name him Andrew Douglas and call him Drew. When we discovered we were having one boy and three girls, I said, "Well, it's Drew and the girls." This was quickly changed to "Drew and the Drewettes." The girls are all welcome that they got nice names and none are Drewette.
Love Michelle and Hillary-- so cute!
The code names are cute! We knew the names we wanted before we ever even got pregnant so everyone knew pretty early on! :)
Hope you'll come by my blog this week and enter to win a free children's book!
That is hysterical! Love it!! I am sitting here trying to recall what we called our kids in utero and you know what? I can't remember. Nugget was the bubble. Doo Dah was dottie (he was a speck when first saw him). And the twins? B1 and B2? Pulling a blank... I will have to ask the Geege and see if he remembers. x
PS Who WAS on the left, Hillary or Obama????
We actually used Baby Aaaa and Baby Baaa. How creative right? However, from my constant rib pain, my cousin lovingly referred to them as Alien and Predator. Claire being Alien and Emma Predator. Our little side game of Alien and Predator kept me sane on bed rest!
Well, we learned it was 2 at 12 weeks...so we nicknamed them the "twinkies" (just like my blog says). We did find out it was a boy/girl at 20 weeks...but we only told family and very close friends what the genders were and we didn't tell anyone the names until they were born.
With Adam, we played along with the bakery names and called him Cupcake during the pregnancy. We did NOT find out the gender for him so nobody knew. We only told a few people the name possibilities.
how funny that your nicknames were based on the political campaign!
We shared right away and remained blissfully unaware of people's inevitable judgements!
We named them the day after I had a positive test b/c my "dream" told me that we were having a boy and a girl...I know, I sound like a hippie.
Hi there! Just "clicked" over from Twintopias Shout Out Saturday ...great story...had a "chuckle".
Happy to have found you...now following!
Ginger
We were pretty uncreative--Baby A and Baby B.
The names were *supposed* to be a secret--that was really important to my husband. He wouldn't even let me hang the names in the nursery until we got home. I now admit I spilled the names to a *few* people, but they did a great job of acting surprised!
Okay, that is HYSTERICAL! As a very politically minded family, I LOVE your tale of in-utero names! We too had a WIDE variety of names we bandied about....
Sid and Nancy, Fred and Ethel and more often than not, Cornbread and Loomis.
Now, the kids occasionally argue over which was Cornbread and which was Loomis! ;)
We always have a utero name- Lili was Superfly, Mia was TaterTot, Elora was Sweet Pea, etc
I found out I was pregnant around Thanksgiving, so we named the baby Turkey. When we found out a few weeks later it was twins, we named the second one Blessing- a spin on Turkey & Dressing.
As for their real names, we told as soon as we figured it out- but we didn't assign the babies names until they were here and we chose which kid looked like which name.
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