The Time I Forgot My Child's Name

Have I ever told y'all about the time I forgot my child's name? I can't remember so I'm telling you, and I apologize if you've heard it all before.

So Andrew made his dramatic entrance on a Saturday morning. You can read all about that drama here if you feel so inclined. The condensed version is, he was born five weeks early by emergency C-Section before the sun came up on the morning of October 6, 2007. In the first few hours of his life, we were led to believe that he would be in the hospital at least two weeks. After 24 hours in the NICU, we were told he would only stay a week. After 48 hours in the NICU, the doctors decided to move him to the nursery for observation and send him home with me the next day.

Exciting? Ummm, well he weighed 4.5 lbs at that point, he was 17 inches long, he didn't fit in his carseat, I had nothing ready at home . . .

Not to mention, I was a hormonal mess. I mean you name it, I had it. Hotflashes . . . check. Tears . . . check. Nerves . . . I had them too. Mood swings . . . what would life be without them?

So it made perfect sense to send me home with a premature baby that was 35 weeks and 3 days and weighed less than your average bag of flour. Perfect sense I tell ya.

Tuesday morning rolled around. At that point, I was psyched to go. I figured we might as well get the show on the road so to speak. Yeah, the doctors and nurses weren't in nearly as big of a hurry. It took us forever to get checked out. Finally, around two in the afternoon, we were ready to move out. I pilfered as much as I could from the nursery cart . . . two hats, a shirt, diapers, formula, wipes (don't judge, the nurse said I could take whatever I wanted) . . . and settled comfortably into the wheelchair. Patrick handed our little bundle of joy to me, and a sweet "older" lady (I think she was like 55 . . . I kid . . . she was at least 60 . . . again, I kid . . . she was definitely in her seventies) came to push me out.

While she was rolling me out, she made small talk. You know your normal questions . . . When was he born? What time? How much did he weigh? How long was he in the NICU? I was batting 1000. My hormonal sleep deprived brain knew all the answers. Then she asked me the question . . . the easiest question ever . . . the question to which I had created the answer . . . "what is his name?".

"His name? Well, ummm his name is . . . well it's . . . " Dangit! I had forgotten his name. I spent hours stressing about his name. I knew it's meaning. I had it written in his baby book. But could I remember it? Nope, all I could think was, "It starts with an A . . . Anthony's name starts with an A, but Anthony's my nephew not my son. What is this kid's name?"

I was starting to panic. Remember those hotflashes? I was sweating enough to fill the Mississippi. I should've just screamed out, "Anthony". The lady never would've known the difference. Patrick might've thought I was nuts, but then again it wasn't like he was helping me out. It was becoming very obvious that I couldn't remember my own child's name while my husband, my in-laws, and some "older" lady that I would never see again looked on.

After approximately two or three minutes, that seemed like twenty or thirty minutes, the lady started to laugh and said, "It's okay hon. It's just the hormones."

I smiled and mumbled something to the effect of, "Yes, it's just the hormones . . . I'm not crazy at all . . . now would someone please tell what the heck this kid's name is?"

Not to worry, once we were in the car, my memory returned. And just so you know, no one ever helped me out and volunteered his name. You would think someone would've said, "Andrew . . . his name's Andrew you moron." But nope, no help from anyone. That's fine I have a memory like an elephant . . . except for this one time . . . and maybe a few others . . .

Disclaimer: This is in no way a reflection my parenting skills. Which are stellar . . . just in case you're wondering.