Names and Miracles

I love my children’s names. We have 3 sons.

Jacob Hughes – 

Jacob is a name that I have always, always loved. I knew if I had a son his name would be Jacob. Luckily, my husband liked it too. Hughes comes from Ben’s grandfather whom he loved and misses very much.

Colton James – 

It was way harder to pick a second boy name. This one took us a long time to agree upon. While I was pregnant with him, I was obsessed with the show Nashville. Haha…you can laugh…but you know you watched it too. Remember when Reyna was dating Luke? Luke was always yelling at his son, Colt. I loved that name! I knew I couldn’t tell Ben that. He would never let us name our son after a stupid tv show (which, by the way, he watched with me). So when I told him I really like the name Colt, he thought it over and said he liked it because the Colt 45 was the gun that won the West. I went with it and said yes…that’s it, that’s awesome! (Side note: Ill be waiting to see if Ben reads this post.) Where the heck is James from? I wish I could tell you that it’s after a family member but it’s not. Just a masculine Hebrew Bible name that we found fitting. The neat thing is Jacob and James both mean “supplanter, holder of the heel, grasps the heel”. Jacob and Colton are in sync. They feed off each other. It’s interesting that they have names that mean the same thing. Have you figured out that I like Biblical names for boys?

Noah Benjamin – 

The name Noah came to us out of nowhere (well obvi the Bible but you know what I mean) and we instantly loved it. Noah means comfort and rest. Benjamin is obviously Ben’s name and I loved the idea of our last son carrying his name. Noah is our little love baby. He was not in our plans…he was straight from God. We had a planned vasectomy and knew we were done having kids after two (even though I always wanted four). Having two was hard enough for us and we couldn’t possibly handle another. When it was time for the procedure, we couldn’t go through with it. We were so conflicted. Something was not right and we could feel it in our guts. Always go with your gut. Procedure postponed. In January, I got the flu. Horrible flu that sent me to the ER. If you know me, you know that I have to be dying to go to the doctor (especially the hospital). They asked me if I was pregnant, I said no. They asked if I was sure, I said yes. They did a pregnancy test, it was negative. Guess what, I was pregnant. About a month before Noah was born I learned about a stem cell transplant trial being performed by Duke University on children with different brain injuries. The trial was closed but word on the street is that they were having an expanded protocol you could pay for using the derived stem cells of your child’s banked cord blood or of their sibling’s banked cord blood if the siblings are a match. Now, I’ve been researching recovery treatments for Jacob for over 3 years. I knew nothing about stem cells. Ummm, I started my career in transplant. However, it was solid organ transplants, not stem cells. I didn’t bank my first two sons’ blood. I thought it was a fad and it was really expensive. However, Ben had his vasectomy exactly one month before Noah arrived soooo – last kid, last chance. We banked Noah’s blood even though chances were that we wouldn’t have enough blood from delayed cord clamping at the birth center. The birth center had performed only one collection before…because, again, one of the points of going there is to have delayed cord clamping. There is usually not enough blood to collect afterward. Out of all the midwives on call, Maddie delivered Noah and she was the only midwife who had a lot of experience collecting umbilical cord blood. Blood bank sent the results. Duke said it’s over enough. Then we had to get HLA matching done to see if the boys were a match. Just got word. They are a match. My prayer to God is if He wants this procedure done for Jacob, He will open doors. Currently, doors are opening and we are waiting for next steps.

Back to the names. I love calling the boys by their nicknames.

Jay and J-man

Colt and Coltie  (formerly known as Big Tiny)

Noah-B (and you have to say it like your singing to the Black Eyed Peas song “Imma Be”.)

What did you name your babies and why? Write it out and save the story for them.

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