I tell you, it has NOT been easy deciding what we will name this baby if it ends up being a boy.

I’ve had my girl name picked out since before I was even pregnant: Lily, named for my grandma Lillian, who passed away in November 2014. I decided right around that time that my first daughter would be named after my grandma. Fortunately Dave really liked the name too! After considering a few options, we decided the middle name will be Grace. So, Lily Grace. Easy peasy.

But of course there is the possibility that I could have a boy! For some reason, every single name that Dave and I liked was either ruined by a past association (either I dated someone with that name, or Dave disliked someone with that name), OR the name was already “taken.”

For awhile our top choices were James and Lucas. But these names were taken by the sons of two of my lifelong friends (who are sisters, actually, so using those names as a first and middle name would be extra weird!). When I was in NY back in November for my baby shower, I asked the sisters if they would mind if I used those names, and they said no, of course not! So for a good month or two, the boy name was going to be James Lucas.

But then it was like ehh, I’m not really feeling that anymore. We started to really like the name Alexander. Alexander James. The problem was that “Alex” is the ex-boyfriend of my sister in law. “She won’t care,” Dave said. I don’t know…if his sister told me she planned to use Dave’s ex’s name for her baby, I’d probably punch her in the face. Although that’s not quite an apt comparison…I guess it would be more like if she wanted to use the name of MY ex, would it bother Dave?

ANYWAY…we left the subject alone for awhile until my New Orleans baby shower, which was on Feb 20. I told his sister we were thinking about Alexander, and she was also totally fine with it. But by that time, just like with James Lucas, we were already feeling kind of meh about Alexander.

Then finally, when I was in NY last week, the name came to me. What had happened was…I was feeling all nostalgic about being in NY and being from NY, and wishing that I could think of a name that was a subtle nod to growing up in NYC. But I didn’t want it to be trendy or anything, like Brooklyn or Hudson. Plus those places don’t have any meaning to me. If only I could think of a name to represent where I’m from but that was also a “normal” name.

Then I had a simultaneous lightbulb over my head/duh moment. I’m from Jackson Heights…so duhh, Jackson would be the perfect boy name!

I had briefly considered Jackson in the beginning, but ruled it out because that’s my friend’s fiance’s name. And then another blogger I know had a baby two weeks ago, and SHE named her baby Jackson James! So even though I really liked it, I had ruled it out as taken. But now here I was nearing the final hour, and “Jackson” just seemed like the most perfect name.

And once again, lucky for me, Dave was on board. Hurray!

So there you have it…at 38 weeks, 6 days pregnant, we finally know what we will name our child if it’s a boy. And just in time, because I’m pretty sure my water broke this morning! I have an appointment in an hour to see, so I’m just killing time and getting one last post in before the baby comes!