what's in a name?

i saw another blogger do a post like this and it made me realize i never did a post on azalea's name, so here it is! thatcher and i agreed before i was even pregnant that our future baby would have a unique (but not weird!) name. thatcher has always loved being a "thatcher" because people always remember him. i think he's only met 1 or 2 other thatchers in his life. side note: i came across this blog and was instantly hooked when i saw her little one is named thatcher :) anyway, back to azalea. i knew i didn't want my kid to be one of five kids with the same name in their grade. there's nothing wrong with that, it's just not my preference. 

before i was even pregnant, i saw the name azalea somewhere online and immediately loved it. it was unique, but not weird (in my opinion). fairly phonetic and easy to spell. and it's a beautiful flower. i stored it away in my brain as a possible some-day girl name. i think i even brought it up to thatcher (because he was so interested in talking about baby names for our invisible child. ha), and he agreed it was pretty. 

when we were finally expecting, i scoured the baby name sites, saving ones that i liked, etc. i didn't have any boy names that i loved, so luckily we didn't have to come up with one. even after looking at hundreds of baby names, azalea always stuck with me. i made sure thatcher knew it was by far my top choice for our little girl. he said he liked it too, but didn't want to choose a name until she was born and to keep our options opened. i, of course, wanted to settle on her name so i could get cute stuff with her name on it....priorities :). but he was firm. plus, we didn't want to tell anyone the name before she was born and he was afraid we would slip, if we made it official. 

through out my entire pregnancy she was azalea to me. i think it would have been really hard for me to go with another name. on the way to the hospital, mid contraction, i jokingly starting yelling "what's her name going to be?" thatcher laughed and said "azalea." i was so happy to have him commit. since i felt like i "picked" her first name, i told him he could chose her middle name...within reason. haha. while waiting for my labor to progress, we spent lots of time writing down different name combinations. in front of my mom, who was sitting in the room. we are so mean :) we finally settled on "dorothy" which is thatcher's grandma's name. 

it was such a fun moment when the doctors and nurses asked what her name was when she came out. and it was also fun telling thatcher's grandma that we chose her name for azalea's middle name. so, that's the story!