PART 3: Meeting the baby

After a silent drive full of praying for the situation, for this baby, and for all the other details of my life that would be placed on hold, I finally arrived at the hospital. When I arrived, there was some confusion over the name, but the nurse was able to confirm which baby I was picking up. She led me over to his bassinet and time stopped. I was immediately captivated. Immediately in love. Laughing, because we were told he was biracial. Before I left to get him Adelyn joked, “Watch him not be biracial, watch him be the little Irish baby with red hair.” Well, there he was, a little bald headed extra white baby with the slightest peach fuzz layer of red hair on his head. I sat for an hour just holding and rocking him, getting details for his care from the nurse.

I got him changed and he then had to do the hour long NICU baby car seat test before our hour drive home. As he was sitting in his seat, I just couldn’t stop laughing at both how adorable he was, but also how funny it was that I was picking up a newborn at the age of 43.

We were almost ready to go, but there was a shift change, so I needed to go to the waiting room while they did what they needed to do. As I sat there, I sent the family some pictures and looked through lists of names. As I looked, nothing seemed to catch my eye. Out of the blue two names popped into my head, Levi and Josiah. Levi means attached or joined and Josiah means supported by God. I loved them both. Then I thought of some middle names. Jeremiah because of Jeremiah 29:11 and David because he authored Psalm 68 and Psalm 139. I like the way Levi Jeremiah and Josiah David sounded.  

We were finally on our way home. When I got there, I was overwhelmed by how much our family and church family had pulled together in support of this little one. I’m still amazed by it. I got him in the door and introduced the new baby to my very excited family. As we all sat around in awe of him and held him and doing all the things you do with new babies, I introduced the names I liked, letting the kids know they had a vote but dad and I made the decision. So Josiah David or Levi Jeremiah. Jonathan said without skipping a beat “It’s Levi David. David Evans is the guitarist for U2.”  That was it, it was decided. We would call him Levi or baby or bubba, but very rarely referred to him by the name the hospital gave us. In fact, his first name would remain blank on his birth certificate for over two years.