Do we have a name?

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We are asked this question almost every day. I get it...it's one of my favorite questions to ask people that are expecting. Before we even started this process, Craw and I had a girl name set in stone and we were 90% sure we had our boy name picked out. A few of the people closest to us know those names but it's one of those things that I feel like as soon as you go public with a name, it suddenly starts appearing everywhere. We've always known we wanted to keep it secret until we were ready to announce.

Here is what I didn't expect. In talking with a friend that recently adopted, I learned so much that I didn't know about the naming process when it comes to adoption. For example, the birth parents have the right to legally name the child. In other words, we will not be able to legally name the child until the adoption is finalized and we have a decree in hand. At that point, we can start the name changing process.

With that said, it really depends on the situation. Some birth parents are okay with the adoptive parents going ahead and naming the child at the time of birth. My friend stated that in her situation, her birth mother legally named her son. However, from the moment they got him, they referred to him as the name they planned to call to him. Everyone knows him by his adopted name. One thing that she did that I LOVED is she actually kept his middle name as the name the birth mother gave him. She told me that she wanted him to know that his biological mother played a part in naming him. I love that she did that and I have already told Craw that if our birth family names the child, I would like to consider incorporating it in to the name we have already picked out.

So all of this to say...we technically don't have any names finalized. It's going to be a wait and see kind of thing.