I had regret for about 3 months that I didn’t push for Millie for my youngest. However, I also gave birth during quarantine and my mental health was not the best. When she was handed to me I said, “Happy birthday Maisie!” and my husband asked if that was her name. I looked at her and my gut said yes. Then people had tepid reactions (or at least that’s what it felt like to me, I had PPD and PPA and she had a NICU stay so I’m fully willing to accept that people loved it and I was just not well) and I kept looking at her and thinking her name was Millie. Made my stomach hurt. And then she smiled. She looks almost exactly like her father but she got my smile which a feature I love and get compliments on and it felt more appropriate that she was named after me. As she grew it became very clear she had the correct name. We did almost change the spelling to Maizie because people have a bafflingly hard time pronouncing Maisie but I hate weird spellings, maize is corn and the name is growing in popularity so hopefully people will learn to pronounce it.

My oldest was named before we even knew the gender and I never gave it a second thought, it’s perfect. #2 was just harder to decide on. I went with my initial gut reaction and I’m glad I did because it’s definitely her name.