20 Questions: Revealing Baby P's Name

According to most soon-to-be parents, choosing a name can be a daunting process. For us, however, choosing the name was fairly easy. Revealing the name has been the more complicated task. From the beginning, Ed was set on keeping the name a secret until the baby was born. I, on the other hand, am horrible at keeping secrets and didn't think that I would be able to wait 4 months to tell. It became especially hard around Christmas time when we made the decision final and started calling him by name when we were by ourselves. Once we started this, it was hard not to slip in front of friends and family. With both of us being on different sides of the fence, Ed and I never officially decided that we would for sure wait to tell until the birth, so it was hard when people started to ask us about it.

Finally, during a New Year's Eve party at a good family friend's house, the pressure began. Our friends kept asking us questions about the name, and they put more pressure on when they realized that I wanted to tell! I kept looking at Ed, and he gave in saying that we could tell this group but no one else (which ended up not being the case since it was hard to stop once we started!) I probably asked him 10 times if he was really sure about it. When he assured me he was, we decided to make our friends guess with a game of 20 questions. As the game started, more of our friends and family gathered around and excitedly worked together to come up with yes or no questions about what we decided to name our little one. Different people were throwing out possible questions to ask, but also shouting, "That's not a question!" just to make sure we didn't answer or count that one. It was really a lot of fun! Finally, question number 13 was the winner. The name was revealed . . . Jack Edward.

Because we had so much fun with it, Ed and I made a whole bunch of people guess our baby's name in this manner during the following weeks. We also decided to announce the name in the shower invitations which was a good compromise for us. Ed felt that this was a more official way to announce it and was satisfied to the point that he no longer felt the need to wait. I'm glad because I am sure that it would eventually have slipped from my mouth at some point!