When you first become a parent, for Catholics that's the moment of conception because that's when God has blessed you with life. The moment of truth is when you see the positive sign on the home pregnancy test or if your doctor confirms it. At the very moment you see the positive lines or hear the words "You're pregnant" there are many emotions and thoughts swirling around in your head at once. Its enough to make a new parent dizzy.
"Will there be one or two?"
"Girl or boy? Should we find out? Do we wait til birth and be surprised?"
"What do I need to buy?"
"Should I be on bed rest?"
"How can we afford this?!"
And that's just the start of the thoughts we get in our heads. When Michael (my husband) and I went to my 20 week ultrasound with my first pregnancy we patiently awaited the gender reveal when the nurse gave my husband a knowing look. I knew all along that my child was a boy and then the fun thoughts began, "Will he get into baseball?" "When do little boys start to like their trucks and cars?" "Boy we're gonna be cleaning lots of mud off of fingers and toes" "I can't wait to teach him to pitch"
and so on and so forth.
Then the naming begins, because we know the gender of the baby we can assign him a name! So we go over every name we like and each of us turn down the names because its jut not ringing well with us. One day I am sitting at our desktop computer and browsing boys names that are Irish because we both have Irish heritage.
The name that I loved was Aidan and we were going to use the middle name Christopher. So for a few months I called the baby growing inside of me "Aidan" I sang to him, I read to him, I loved the name Aidan and it was a name we'd settled on. I even wrote a livejournal entry called Aidan. Mike and I were proud parents and we couldn't wait to see what Aidan looked like. Then my husband got the news that his uncle Angel had passed on. We went to his funeral and Michael paid his respects. We went home with Michael's niece and she mentioned that a girl we barely knew was also naming her son Aidan but spelled "Aiden" and since she also had a son with the same "sounding" name "Jaidyn" we thought long and hard about naming our little boy something else.
Then, as I sat at my computer looking through names once again, I turned to my husband and said "What about naming him after your uncle and cousin?"
So my firstborn inherited the name "Angel Leon" from his deceased relatives. He may never meet them but his name honors them. And my husband loved them dearly. The little boy I spent 3 months of my pregnancy calling Aidan is now Angel.
People often mistake Angel for a girl because in this day and age Angel is a feminine name. However, Michael once read a names history book that showed that Angel before the 1950s was ONLY a boys name and girls were never named Angel. It wasn't until the late 50s that girls started having the name Angel. In fact, if anyone were interested to look into the history of names, there are a few names that are seen nowadays as "feminine" that used to be boys only names. Angel is one, Ashley is another and Leslie is another.
The more you know.
The rest of my children are:
Abel James who was originally called Christopher James but because my husband wanted an A.J and was convinced he wouldn't get a daughter to call A.J we went with Abel James on the day of his birth.
Zachary John was Paul Anthony for a few weeks then I decided he'd be Zachariah John. His birth certificate said Zachariah John for 24 hours and then I had it changed and shortened to Zachary John
Zoey Jane was pretty much always Zoey Jane.
A few names we threw around for her were Abigail Ann which fell through because there's a local store named Abby Ann's and Zoey Ann fell through also because of Zoe Anne's
Michael's oldest is Joseph Michael. And don't ask me that back story because I aint his mama.
A famous male "Leslie" would be Leslie Howard, British actor, whose plane was shot down over the English Channel by a German Ju-88 in WWII, according to Lufwaffe records.
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