Am I Wrong For Choosing My Baby’s Name Because I’m The One Carrying It?
I was folding a pile of hand-me-down onesies on the couch last Tuesday, 20 weeks pregnant, my swollen ankles propped on top of the stack when Sam pulled up his baby name app and dropped his latest pick. “Jace,” he said, turning the phone toward me. “My old coworker just named his kid that, and I really like it. It’s simple, fits with our last name.” I stared at the screen, then felt a sharp little kick right under my rib cage, like the baby was agreeing with the knot of irritation in my throat. “I hate it,” I said. When Sam sighed and started saying I just shot down every name he liked, I blurted it: “I should get final say. I’m the one carrying it.” The room went quiet. Sam closed his app, got up to grab a beer from the fridge, and didn’t bring up names again for three days.
I’ve been turning the question over ever since: am I in the wrong here? I posted it to my small birth group on Facebook that night, got 47 comments that ranged from “You grew it, you name it” to “That’s incredibly unfair to your partner, it’s his baby too.” I get both sides. I knew when we got pregnant we’d have to work all this stuff out, but I didn’t expect a name to turn into this big fight over who gets what.
I have hyperemesis gravidarum, so the first 14 weeks were rough. I missed 12 days of work, lost 12 pounds, and Sam ended up sleeping on the couch for a month because my nausea spiked every time I smelled his mint aftershave. He’s been great—he takes out the trash, he painted the nursery sage green like I wanted, he picks me up ginger ale and saltines on his way home from work every day. But none of that changes the fact that every time I bend over to tie my shoes I’m out of breath, that I have to get up three times a night to pee, that last week I had to go in for an emergency progesterone shot that left my hip sore for three days, and Sam couldn’t even come with me because his boss wouldn’t approve the time off. That’s the part no one really talks about when they say it takes two to make a baby: right now, 90% of the work is happening inside my body, whether we both want it that way or not.
I think a lot of parenting advice out there treats every big decision like it has to be split 50/50, no exceptions. If you don’t compromise on everything, you’re being selfish. But equality doesn’t look the same as 50/50 on every single thing, right? When I was puking five times a day and couldn’t stand the smell of food, Sam did all the cooking and all the dishes for three months. I didn’t insist on doing half of that to keep it equal, because I physically couldn’t. It makes sense that the decision that feels most tied to the work I’m doing right now should land more on me, too.
After three days of awkward silence, I bought our favorite frozen pepperoni pizza on my way home from work, and brought it up to him. I didn’t lead with “I’m right, you’re wrong.” I said, “When I blurted that I get final say, I didn’t mean you don’t get any input. I just need you to see that this is my body 24/7 right now, and that matters to me when it comes to picking the name we’ll call this kid every day for the rest of our lives.” That’s the line I wish I’d said the first time, instead of blurting it out in irritation. It didn’t fix everything immediately, but it got us talking instead of shutting down.
Sam said what he’d been holding back: he was hurt, that he felt like I was pushing him out before the baby even got here, that he’s just as excited to be a dad as I am. I acknowledged that, that that wasn’t my intention at all. Then we landed on a concrete rule that works for us, that any couple can copy if they’re stuck in this same spot: We went through our separate name lists, and we each get to cross off any name for any reason, no explanation required. That way, neither of us is stuck with a name we hate. If we get down to a shortlist we still can’t agree on, I get the final vote.
That’s not a rule that works for every couple, I get that. But it works for us right now, because it acknowledges what’s actually true, instead of pretending we’re both carrying the same load. If we were co-parenting and one of us was going to be the stay-at-home parent the first two years, that parent would get more say on the pediatrician, the daycare schedule, what snacks we keep in the house, right? Because they’re the one living with those decisions every single day. This is the same thing. I’m the one living with this baby in my body right now, so I get a little more say on the name. A friend of mine who had her baby last year told me she and her partner did something similar, but he got final say on the car seat and stroller pick, because he’s the one who drives them around every day for commutes. It’s not about being mean or cutting someone out. It’s about matching decision power to who’s going to deal with the outcome the most.
We still haven’t picked the name. We’re down to three right now, two I love and one Sam loves more than the others. He still teases me a little about “hogging” the name pick, but he hasn’t pushed back on our rule. Last night he sent me a text with the name Elowen, which I mentioned offhand three weeks ago that I liked, and said “This actually doesn’t suck as much as I thought it would.” We still might end up fighting when we’re in the delivery room, staring at a tiny baby and still no name. But right now, this feels a lot fairer than forcing some 50/50 split that doesn’t match how our pregnancy is actually going. I don’t know if that makes me wrong. I think it just makes us two people figuring it out as we go.
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