Am I Wrong For Choosing My Baby’s Name Because I’m Carrying The Baby? A First-Time Parent’s Perspective
I was cross-legged on our couch last week, folding the stack of hand-me-down onesies my cousin dropped off, when the fight blew up. My 18-week bump pressed against the edge of the coffee table, and Jake, my husband, was scrolling through his saved baby names on his phone, propped up against the arm next to me. “Just give Wyatt another chance,” he said, tapping the screen. “He was my grandpa’s name. It fits.” I stared at the little yellow duck print on the onesie in my hand, my right hip throbbing from standing at the preschool art table all day, and blurted it out: “I get final say here. I’m the one carrying the baby.” He paused, locked his phone, and stood up. “Okay,” he said, and walked out to the garage to get a beer. I sat there on the couch, the half-folded onesie in my lap, and wondered if I’d just been unfair.
I posted the question to the first-time mom group I joined when I got that positive test, and stayed up half the night scrolling through replies. Half the commenters said absolutely not—if you’re the one dealing with morning sickness, swollen ankles, and a 10-pound human squishing your bladder in another three months, you get to pick the name. The other half said I was being out of line: it’s his baby too, shutting him out like that would set a bad tone for co-parenting down the road.
As a preschool teacher, I’ve seen this dynamic play out a hundred times with the families I work with. Small pregnancy decisions turn into the precedent for how you show up for each other for the next 18 years. I’ve had a mom in my class who still complains about her son’s name seven years later—she gave in to her husband to keep the peace, and now every time she writes it on a permission slip, she feels a little twist of resentment. I’ve also had a dad who told me he never really felt like he was on equal ground from the start, because his wife claimed all pregnancy decisions as hers, and he never figured out how to step in after the baby was born.
I thought about what’s actually been going on these past few months. I had hyperemesis for the first 12 weeks, lost 11 pounds, spent half my days curled up on the bathroom floor. Jake never once complained about cleaning up, about stopping for Gatorade at 1 a.m. on his way home from a work trip, about taking over every single load of laundry for three months. But he still gets to go hiking with his buddies on Saturdays. He still sleeps through the night, even when I’m up peeing three times. He doesn’t have the baby pressing on his sciatic nerve when he sits at his desk. He doesn’t have to think about this baby 24 hours a day, in his body, every time he turns around. That’s not a complaint—that’s just the fact of it right now.
Two days after the fight, I brought it up again while we were washing dishes after dinner. I didn’t just stand by the sink and repeat that I get final say. I told him exactly what I was feeling, no vague ultimatums: “I know this is your baby too, and that name matters a lot to you because of your grandpa. Your input matters to me. But right now, this baby is with me every single second of every day. I can’t wear my favorite jeans, I can’t bend over to tie my shoes, I can’t even eat tacos without getting heartburn for three hours. This one decision, the first name, feels like the one small thing I get to have full control over right now, when almost everything else feels up in the air.”
He dried his hands on the dish towel and leaned against the counter. He said he’d never thought about it that way. He just felt like he should get an equal say, because it’s his kid too. We started throwing ideas around, and that’s when we landed on a middle ground that works for both of us right now. I get to pick the first name, no arguments. He gets to pick the middle name, no arguments from me. If it’s a girl, her name will be Clara Wyatt, after my grandma who raised me and his grandpa. If it’s a boy, it’s August Wyatt, the first name I’ve loved since I was 16. It doesn’t split everything 50/50 right down the middle, but it’s fair.
From what I’ve seen working with families, that’s the thing no one tells you about co-parenting before the baby gets here. Equal doesn’t mean splitting every single decision exactly in half. It means weighing who’s carrying the load for that thing, right now, and adjusting accordingly. When the baby gets here, I’ll be the one recovering from birth, breastfeeding around the clock, and figuring out sleep schedules. If Jake wants to take charge of picking out the stroller, or the crib paint color, or what after-school activity we try first when the kid is older, that’s his call. I’ll be happy to let him carry that load. A couple years from now, if he’s the one driving to every soccer practice and weekend tournament, he can pick what league we sign up for. It’s not about who “deserves” more power. It’s about meeting each other where you are.
We still have 12 weeks left before the due date. Sometimes we still bicker about it, when we’re filling out the baby registry or folding more hand-me-downs. Jake still jokes that I’m going to take one look at the baby and change my mind the second she’s born. I still tease him that if I have a boy and he turns out to hate Wyatt as a middle name, we can blame dad. It’s not a perfect arrangement, and there’s no way to know if we’ll look back in 10 years and think we did this right. But right now, it works. I don’t think I was wrong for saying what I said. I just think it’s okay to ask for what you need, when you’re the one carrying all the weight.
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