Aowyn Lorrayne (whats in a name)

So its about time I posted this story. I finally had some time during nap time to sit down and type it all up.

I went to school with a girl named Caewyn and I thought she had the prettiest name when I met her, it was different, something I had never heard before. We hung out a lot my Senior year of high school and even dressed up like the powder puff girls for Halloween, lol found memories. Anyway I always loved her name, so it was stored in my memory. One day when we were watching lord of the rings, I heard the princess of Rohan's name Eowyn (prounounces A-o win) and thought it was beautiful too. Not a huge massive crazy lord of the rings fan, but it’s a good movie and I enjoy the story line and especially the role of Eowyn. So when we found out we were having a girl we tossed around those names a bit along with some others that just never really clicked. Since the boys have only a and o vowels in their names and all of them have irish/celtic names we decided to use kind of a combo of the names Caewyn and Eowyn and keep with the A and O theme. Also all of the kids names come from or are a version of a name from a movie, Landon is from a Walk to Remember, Braddoc is from Cinderella Man and Tayton is from Little Man Tate so we thought we should stick with the movie theme as well. And from that came the name Aowyn (pronounces A-uh-win with a long A sound).

We loved the name Aowyn but could not come up with a middle name, we debated on several but neither of us could agree on any. We talked about using Joyce after my grandmother who passed away when Noah and I first started dating, I adored her and think about her often. That was my favorite name to use because it came from someone I loved. Noahs grandma who passed away recently also had the name of Joyce, but she was not a very nice lady, so Noah was not a fan of it because of that. He didn’t want our daughter to have a name that was the name of such a mean person. So that one really got vetoed.

All of the kids have middle names of people who mean something to us in our lives, not neccessarly a relative but someone who we admire. Landons is Ross, after Noah’s (which is from Betsy Ross who sewed the first American flag, whom we are related to.) Braddocs is Ammon after our favorite character from the Book of Mormon and Taytons is Bryant afte Bear Bryant, the most winning coach in Alabama football history ( and of course we are HUGE Alabama football fans). So her middle name had to be special too. Noah and I both love Charlotte and Scarlet so we talked about those, but the only thing special about those what that they are southern and we love the south. I love the names but it just didn’t feel right to not have a name that was special. We talked about Ruby, my great grandmother who I also adored but Noah didn’t like that name, especially paired with Aowyn. We talked about Anaston the other girls name that we debated using because it was a town in Alabama that we both loved and where Noah was going to propose but didn’t (a whole nother story right there). The last thing was to use a name with Ray in it somewhere. My name is after my grandpa (my dads dad) Ray Engels Bailey. He had a friend named Ray as well so when he went out people would call him his first and middle Initial, R. E. and there came my name. My dads middle name is also Ray and my brothers middle name is Ray. My brother Micah is how Noah and I met and at one point we had talked about using his name as one of our boys middle names because he was special to both of us and our meeting. But there was no name that we liked enough that had Ray in it to use.

So when we went into labor we still hadn’t really fully settled on a middle name, we said Aowyn Anaston, but both of us keep asking each other, "Are you sure?" It just didn’t feel right. My nurse was a friend from church name Lorraine, I think she is so sweet and she has been here for years, and every time I have had a baby here she has been off or out of town, and she always jokes with me about planning my babies for when she is not there, so when I found out she was my nurse I was thrilled. Everytime I have ever talked to her on the phone I tell Noah as soon as I get off the phone, “I really love her name.” so of course in the 18 hrs of delivery the topic came up of how much I liked her name and how I had never met anyone with that name, the only time I had ever heard it before her was on Back to the Future and when I heard it on there I thought it was a cool name. She laughed and said that she had never met anyone with it either. That was it, not even a thought about using it as a name, just the fact that we loved it.

Through the course of delivery, which was so intense and painful, totally natural but not by choice and very scary, Lorraine was my advocate and by my side the whole time. The babies cord was around her neck, she was face up and her head was side ways (they could feel her ear instead of the top of her head), all of these things they didn’t know prior to delivery and each was discovered through some scary turn of events during the labor process. I was stuck at a 9 for 9 hours and Aowyn kept going into distress, they had to give me medicine to stop my contractions because with everyone her heart rate would drop and not come back up before another one started. One of the doctors wanted to do a csection because everything was so bad and I was not progressing. The other two doctors agreed but Lorraine wasn’t having it, she told them to give her an hour and to not freak out if the babies heart rate dropped. She rolled me over to my stomach and helped me get on my hands and knees, I was in so much pain I was screaming and she stood there for a whole hour rubbing my shoulders and holding of my legs when they got tired. She rubbed my neck and would push the hair out of my face and helped me breath through the pain. The babies heart rate didn’t drop with contractions it stayed up, she watched the moniter the whole time and would tell me “she is looking beautiful Aurie, you are doing good.” I was so worried about the baby and Lorraine knew it so she made sure that she kept me informed every minute, literally, of the babies progress. After an hour on my hands and knees I couldn’t do anymore so she layed me flat on my belly and gave me oxygen, and rubbed my head as I screamed in pain from the contractions. Finally I couldn’t take anymore and said, “do whatever you have to do to get her out, I feel like Im dieing.” Thankfully that meant it was time to push. The doctors couldn’t believe that I didn’t have to have a csection all of them were in awe. Lorraine saved me from a c-section and was my hero.

After Aowyn was out and laying on my stomach with tears in my eyes I looked at Noah who said, “her middle name is Lorraine.” I smiled and nodded because I too had been thinking the same thing, “with a y in stead of an I for the ray from all the men in my family and so she can have some my my name too.” i said. And that was it, nothing else felt so right. I looked at my beautiful daughter, Aowyn Lorrayne Jenkins and knew that was exactly who she was. The name felt so right and was so perfect and of course is very special to us. A story that we can tell her anytime she wants to know where we got her name.