What's In A Name?

When we first arrived in Zaporozhye, we were told that before that first day ended, we needed to know what name we'd be giving Nadia so her birth certificate could be "re-done".  We knew that we were keeping Nadia's original first name (although the way we're spelling it is the American version of it).  But quite honestly we hadn't talked much about her middle name.  I started to panic a little at the thought of having to name this newest member of our family "under pressure".  So, I whispered a silent prayer that we would chose the right name and then Jim, Allen, Michael and I began discussing different options.  None of them seemed completely "right" but we were pretty happy with one of them.  However, when Marina, our facilitator, gave me Nadia's history from her file, she mentioned her parents' names.  That's when it hit me.  I knew that her middle name needed to be her birth mother's name.  Marina almost tried to talk me out of it but then I explained to her why I knew we had to do this.


I could just imagine the anguish of this younger mother when she found out her newborn daughter had Down syndrome.  And because of the lack of education as to the potential of people with Ds in this country (and ours for that matter), I knew that she probably felt very scared and confused.  I knew that she probably received a lot of pressure from her husband and family to abandon her daughter and just make this problem go away.

I'm quite sure she could not have imagined in that moment how beautiful and smart her daughter would turn out to be and how people's hearts would melt when they would see her smile and receive her hugs.  

I'm sure she could never imagine that the child she already had would be willing to play with and teach his/her younger sister how to clap.

I'm sure she couldn't imagine that this little baby would make her older brother/sister laugh and see life in a much better way just because of who she is.

I'm sure she couldn't imagine that a father would be willing to take the time to make sure this little girl learns how to walk steadily on her own two feet.

I'm sure she couldn't imagine that her daughter would ever learn how to read or function in a global society that continues to place people with special needs in a different category than the rest of us.

I'm sure she felt love for her baby girl when she first held her in her arms but her fears of the unkown most likely kept her believing that this was not something she could handle.

The reason my heart goes competely out to this mother, who gave birth to our new daughter, is because I too felt all of those same emotions when I first found out 12yrs. ago that the baby girl I was carrying had Down syndrome.  I was scared, uneducated, confused, and within those first 24hrs I wished that I could just make this "problem" go away.   I thank God that my faith in Him was stronger than my faith in my abilities to raise a "special needs" child because otherwise our story could be just like Nadia's parents. 

So that's why I just knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that our daughter's name needed to be:

                                                    NADIA IRINA FERGUSON

Once I explained all of this to Marina, she paused for a moment, and then whispered to me that none of her families had ever named their child after the birth mom.  I guess we'll be the first then. :)