Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Did I miss something...

Most observant folks might notice that when we got our referral we introduced our son as 'Devin Shawn Bedilu Manning'. Last week when we announced that we passed court we introduced 'Bedilu Michael Manning'.... Anyone confused???

The issue of naming in adoption is complicated. There are good points to both sides - to keep the birth name or to change them. I am not trying to start a debate here. It is totally a personal choice and I really don't believe one way is better than the other - this is just the story of how we came to change his name and then change it back again :)

We (for lots of very good reasons) had decided to change our son's name. We thought about it long and hard and weighed the pros and cons. We poured over baby name books and made list upon list of names to consider. We choose a name we really liked - Devin - just because we liked it, Shawn for Mike's middle name and then Bedilu for his birth name. At this time we also began calling our son Bedi. My family tends to shorten names as nick names and Bedi has just kind of stuck all along.

Fast forward to meeting our son. All of a sudden it just seemed right to keep his name. Once we saw him we just knew he is a 'Bedilu'. Bedilu means 'by his luck'. Now, I don't really believe in luck - I do believe that our lives are directed by God and that Bedi has come to us not by luck but by a Divine plan. Changing his name 'back' to Bedilu wasn't a hard - it just feels right. I know we messed a few people up who have been making us things with his name - so sorry for that :) And that my friends, is the story of Devin/Bedilu.

5 comments:

Joy said...

We found naming difficult, too. We ended up having to decide on short notice, not realizing that we needed to decide before placement (domestic public adoption) rather than at finalization (many months down the road). We had "favourite" boys' names we simply liked a lot, and a couple of "favourite" family names. We ended up deciding that if we were going to add a new name to their original names, it should have some signficance, so we went with the family names as new middle names, and called them by both names for a while, until it seemed the new middle names were working out for us all. Oh, and two of our three kiddos had significant second names originally as well, so they have ended up with triple names. Someday I will likely have to apologize to them about that (and I still have no idea how to fill out legal paperwork when there is no room for a third name. Oh well).

The Turgeon Expansion said...

We kept our daughter's birth name too, just felt right, just seemed perfect. No decision could be the wrong one! Love his name..

Rhonda

Anonymous said...

I LOVE the name you chose. Looking at his picture it just seems a perfect fit. Can't wait till you have a travel date!!
Janice

Krista said...

It's perfect.

Kendra said...

Love the name, cant wait to see you home with Bedilu!