A Can of Worms

A few days ago Denise left a comment asking about Gunnar's name.

The short story is that it's a Scandinavian name that means "bold warrior".

But the long story (kind of opening a can of worms, but I don't mind...) follows.

Actually, I had originally chosen a different name - Boone.

* This is going to seem like random threads - like my thoughts - but be patient, it all comes together :0) *

Okay, if you're a GUBA child and you grew up exposed to the King James Version, you probably have some obscure words in your vocabulary. A boon is the opposite of a bane. A blessing, a benefit, as opposed to a curse. But I would've spelled it with an "e" on the end... kind of western, I guess.

When I met Kerry he was recovering from Hodgkin's Lymphoma and was finishing up chemotherapy and radiation treatments. He's been cancer-free for (15? more?) years - thank you, God - and is considered to have the same risk of getting cancer as the rest of the population, now. But there were some lasting effects... his immunities are pretty rotten, his joints ache, his teeth aren't so great, AND (the biggie) the chemo often impacts fertility. Yup.

Fortunately Kerry knew this, going into it, and was able to take action... which I won't describe in detail :0) And, as a result, we refer to our boys as our "Frozen Assets". They don't know all about this yet, but we will surely tell them eventually.

At any rate, when we first saw a fertility specialist (the G0-To Guy in Seattle), to talk about starting a family, he considered the small amount of "deposits" we had at our disposal, and cautiously predicted that - assuming I had no fertility issues - we could hope to conceive one child, and if we were extremely lucky, maybe two, but we shouldn't hope for any more.

And so, with time, and a certain (limited) amount of medical intervention, along came Wyatt and Tate. Neither Kerry and I wanted to have an only child, and had talked about adopting if things didn't work out biologically. So, with two, Kerry was content and would've been glad to be done. But I was hoping for more.

We prayed about it and decided to proceed with what we could do (well, mostly ME, at that point), and leave it in God's hands... where it always was anyway. And when it came right down to the wire, I became pregnant again :0) (And had a very vivid dream that I was carrying triplets, which - thankfully - was not prophetic!)

I was sure, all along, that we would have another boy. Kerry was hoping for a girl. When I suggested the name Boone he quickly agreed. It sounded kind of 'western', like Wyatt, and I liked the idea of 'his' name proclaiming that 'he' (I was so sure!) was a blessing. I actually had Gunnar at the top of my list, but thought Kerry wouldn't like the name... too ethnic, or something.

Well, he had himself convinced that we were having a girl, so he didn't care what boy name I chose! Then, when we had an ultra-sound at about 5 months, which revealed quite clearly that we had another boy, Kerry quickly got over any disappointment... and told me that he didn't like the name!

Back to the drawing board... I still liked the name Gunnar, but was sure he wouldn't, so I started searching for something else. Meanwhile, Kerry came to me with a short list, and guess what was at the top?

Gunnar :0)