A Baby with a Name

{our sweet firstborn, touched by loss at a young age}

Six years ago today I went to the hospital, pregnant with a baby with no heartbeat. Some hours later I went home to my pig-tailed firstborn, not quite two years old, no longer expecting our second, a baby we were going to name Benjamin Jack or Sierrah Grace.

Some weeks later, in the beginning stages of grief, Jonathan and I decided to name our lost baby. I have never shared that name publicly. It has felt too personal to me, too sacred.

We named our sweet little one Jordan.

Jordan means "Descendant" which I loved because this was our child, whether we got to keep him (?) or not. Jordan can be a boy name or a girl name, and although we have always felt our baby was a boy, we have no proof of that and no way to know.

I loved that it is a Hebrew name, just as Hannah is. I liked that even in death, they shared something.

I also loved that this baby, so wanted and so loved, had a name that began with the same letter as both of his parents.

So there's no birth certificate, no hospital baby bracelet, no ink-stamped little footprints, no announcement picture. But there's another child in my heart. Not just Hannah and Natalie, but Hannah, Jordan and Natalie. I have two living children; two here to hold and to raise, and a third I hold in my heart.

Jordan Lynn: carried in my womb for 10 weeks; carried in my heart for a lifetime.

Never forgotten, not for a day. Particularly remembered every year on this date, November 10th.