Born Still but Still Born

So, I was driving home on my way from work today and on the radio, the hosts were interviewing a hockey player.

His name is Curtis.

I sat (well drove) and listened to the interview. He was bantering back and forth with the hosts of the radio show, his wife a few times popped in a comment in the back ground.

It is interesting. His name always catches me attention. I hear it often, as a first name. As a last name. It always makes me smile a bit. Curtis was the name I came up with. Craig wasn't really keen on it at first, he had a guy at work with a similar name and he wasn't a real big fan of him.

We actually had a big fight about it. I mean, as much we fight. It is more me getting sooo upset and him sitting there going "what just happened here?"

I thought it was the perfect name. It didn't rhyme/sound sing songy with our last name (which ends in an "y" sound). I liked the nickname of "Curt". It was a C name. It wasn't super common, but not uncommon.

That day I was so upset Craig didn't love the name as much as I did. I loved it. A few hours later I got a text from Craig that said:

"I like Curtis now." Whether he just decided to give in because I was big, hormonal, and carrying his first child or he truly liked the name now, the world will never know. Because lord knows he will NOT say it was because I was big and hormonal!

I had that text message saved on my phone for 2 and a half years. I would make sure it never got deleted. I always had to save it every few weeks as other text messages rolled in. What is funny as I was writing this, I just realized that when I got my iPhone and changed providers in November, that message is now gone. Lost on an old phone.

Suddenly, I miss it.

I had saved other text messages from during his loss. I had a handful of them people had sent right after I had sent one saying he had been born, it was a cord accident, and that he had looked like Craig. I had saved a few from the weeks following Craig had sent me whenever we were apart. I had saved one from my first week back at work from Craig, checking in on me.

I miss those too.

For those years I had them saved, I would scroll through occasionally just taking myself back to those moments. The big fight over the name. The hours after his loss. The first time we were apart after losing him.

So funny how I had forgotten about those text messages once they weren't saved on my phone anymore and when I started this blog post my memory was suddenly triggered. Not the direction I expected this post to take, but I don't mind.

I like his name, I like hearing his name. It doesn't pain me, it makes me feel good about the choice we made for him. It was one of the few things that we were able to do that normal parents get to do. Name their new baby.