On Monday we drove to Winston Salem for Genetics Counseling ("Are you related?" "No, that seems highly unlikely - Did you clock the accents?" * ) and an ultrasound. At this point they can say, with 95% degree of accuracy, what gender your baby is and our tech was pretty certain that the alien spawn is a girl!
This is especially good because we were finding it difficult to choose a name for a boy, but we both really like the name Evalyn for a girl. I had a Great-Aunt Eveline who I was very fond of, and, whilst Doc C never met her, he just really loves the name. Just like my Aunty our daughter will be Eva for short, but we are going with a different spelling to make the pronunciation clearer - If we spell it Eveline she will almost certainly be referred to as "Eve Line" or possibly "Ever Line", and we want her name to be pronounced "Eva Lin".
We were just brain-storming names when I first threw Evalyn out as a suggestion and I didn't think much more about it, until the Doc brought it up again when we were having the same discussion on another occasion. He really liked the name and was already very keen that we call our child that if she were a girl (I don't think I was even pregnant at this point!). I do think it's a pretty name, but it's also good that Aunty Eva was actually quite amazing in her own way. Eva was a Major in the army, which was one of those details of her earlier life that blew my mind as a child; because to me she was the woman who knitted me hooded cardigans, made me elaborate soft toys, gave me books like the "Chronicle of the 20th Century" and could be relied upon for incredibly rich tea-time confections. I also think it was damn cool that she didn't marry and never seemed to regret that particularly; she was proudly independent and self-reliant, so, whilst I'm sure we would disagree on things like politics if she were still alive today, her strength of character is definitely something that I hope my daughter will be inspired by.
* When we lived in London and were taking the night-bus home one evening, the drunk guy sitting in front of us turned around and, having clearly been eavesdropping on our bus-ride banter, abruptly asked "Are you brother and sister?" and then said "No, because you are British and he's American, so are you a couple?". Drunk guy's girlfriend was mortified, but it was really funny!
Recent Comments