When BJ and I were dating and knew we would be getting married, we did what I imagine a lot of couples do... we started dreaming of a family someday and how many kids we wanted and what we wanted them to be named. Before we even married, in a perfect world we wanted 4 kids - 2 boys, 2 girls - and as close together in age as possible. Right after our first anniversary, we found out we were pregnant and so began the family years for us.....
We didn't find out the gender in our first two pregnancies, so we also decided to keep our names super close and private just to us... if it was a girl, we were going to name her Dorothy Grace... and well, wouldn't you know our first baby was a girl... but, she wasn't Dorothy Grace. BJ and I both knew it right when we met her... we stared at her and stared at her and decided she was definitely our Eleanor Michael. This is other name we knew we would use if we had more than one daughter... and so it was, we surprised ourselves and used that name and kept Dorothy Grace private and prayed that one day she would be a reality.
15 months later came Tripp, again... we were surprised when he was a boy, but knew without a doubt that he was our William Joseph Rector, III as soon as we laid eyes on him.
16 months later came loss.We were pregnant with our third but lost that baby super early... only to walk a road of infertility for the next five years. I've shared quite a bit about this, but truly, the darkest days of my life were wrapped in these few years. It was isolating, it came with physical limitation and pain, it felt ridiculous of me... I mean, I was holding two perfectly healthy and precious kiddos but was gutted over the loss of an ideal, a dream, a huge desire of my heart.
16 months later we lost my Mimi. I remember every single moment of the day that I received the phone call that she had passed.... and I fell apart. She would never know. I had my chance with Eleanor, but now both of my grandmothers wouldn't know that we prayed for a girl to carry their beautiful names and it about did me in.
Over the next 3 years, BJ and I would pray - by name - for the two kids we hoped and prayed would one day join our family. I would have dreams, often, of nursing a baby.... which, consequently in the longing, is quite a painful dream to wake up and realize is not your reality. With Eleanor and Tripp I would never have a specific dream.... I mean, once I dreamed Eleanor was a hamburger! But the last couple of years I have had such vivid dreams of a baby, who's face I couldn't quite make out but who I definitely knew was biological because I would be feeding them.... and I prayed that the Lord would take those dreams away if they weren't from him.... but then November 21, 2017.... the day I found out we would be having another baby.... I'll never, ever get over that day.
I started having even more dreams as soon as I found out I was pregnant.... and the most vivid one happened mid December before we found out the gender... I was on my knees looking up while pink was flying all over me - I didn't even think that much about it but decided to keep it to myself.... and the sweetest grace is the memory of our gender reveal. It is in all of our pictures so vividly... as the pink confetti flew over us, I fell to my knees. Looking up, I was in the midst of my dream come true.
So, your name.... oh my precious Dorothy Grace, you are the sweetest grace.
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