Names again:)

I don't think that it's objectively a slap to your parents. Do you think they would feel hurt? (Briefly or deeply? Would that bother you? Would they be willing to talk it over?)

To me, you could look at it either as just a name you like that happens to be your birth name (I'm assuming you don't remember being called Sarah at any point), OR as a name that happens to honor the woman who loved you enough to give you up to your loving adoptive family, OR as a name that subtly evokes a part of who you are. (Hopefully that makes sense. It made sense in my head anyway!)

I like Sarah too -- it's a family name and is on our list.

I don't know. I think we'll not bring it up til the baby is born, and then if it is a she and she looks like Sarah we might just do it. It's not sounding so terribly bad any more, I just wasn't sure. Talking things over with my parents consists of them trying to reason with me about why their way is right, I stopped doing that a few months after I first got married.

They're weird about the whole adoption thing, I think they thought they would adopt me and I'd never want to know anything, but when I was in my early teens I was really curious and I looked up my birth mom on the internet, and started having contact with her (supposedly it was an open adoption, so supposedly this was okay) and now we talk about once a month, and I've been to visit a few times. But yeah, my parents were hurt by all that, so the whole deal is touchy and I try to keep my 'adopted' and 'birth' lives totally seperate.

So it's a decision we'll have to make on our own. Sarah isn't a terribly uncommon name anyway, so maybe it isn't going to even come up or they'll think I didn't know it was my birth name (I don't think they ever told me).

I don't know. It's not seeming so bad, now. Thanks!


Cara

i think that if the name sarah is resonating with you, you should definitely consider it.

however, i do think talking to your parents about it before you officially declare the name is a wise move. our son was without an official name for 3 weeks after his birth because of a name issue with my mother. his first name is Marek, which is a common first name in eastern europe, but the reason i wanted to name him that was because it also my mother's maiden name and the name my grandmother used for most of her life despite being divorced when in her later 20s. i was very close to my grandmother, who lived with us until her passing when i was 15, and i wanted to name our son in honor of her. unfortunately, i wasn't the first one to tell my mom about this possibility of us naming our son this name, and i didn't get to address her concerns and listen to her. after i had the opportunity to explain why i wanted to choose this name and to reassure her that it was more to honor my grandmother rather than the grandfather i never knew and my mother felt abandoned by, it still took a couple of weeks for my mom to come to peace with it. we were also debating about middle names between my partner and myself, so it wasn't that big a deal. i just wish that i had talked to my mom about it earlier and that i had been the one to bring the name topic up and tell her our thoughts and ideas.

i trusted that my mom would eventually be able to come to peace with our preferred name choice, and i honestly don't know what we would have done if she had not found her peace. i can't imagine our son being named anything else and even in those early days couldn't imagine it.

maybe you could present it to your parents before your baby is born as a "we're thinking about this name really seriously because somehow it feels like the right name... we won't be sure until the babe is born, but i wanted to know how you feel about it..."

~claudia

Thanks for that, that is somewhat of a smiliar situation. We have plenty of time for the name, so that is working in our favor. I'm only going to bring it up if baby comes out looking like a Sarah, though. No need to cause a fuss about it if baby ends up looking like a Brandy or a Zachary!

Thanks,
Cara