by Melissa Willets posted in Pregnancy

In college, my best friend and I named our theoretical children. As if to confirm fears our kids are growing up faster than we did, my little girls already talk about what they will name their kids one day.
When is too early pick a baby name" While trying to conceive, when you find out you're pregnant" Before 12 weeks"
Each time I've been pregnant, we seem to decide earlier and earlier what our baby's name will be. With our first daughter, we settled on a name a few months before she was born. The second time around, I'd say by the time I was five or six months pregnant her name was set in stone.

The third and fourth times I was pregnant, baby's name was a sure thing by my mid-second trimester. Most recently, I have been undergoing IVF. The entire time, I've had a name in mind, should I be lucky enough to get pregnant. The name gives me something to hold onto, something to hope for, something to dream about, as I endure painful injections and grieve the loss of our fourth baby.
But did we jump the gun by picking a baby name before seeing a positive pregnancy test"
Back in college, it seemed totally rational to dream up baby names with my friend, despite the fact that neither one of us planned to become a mom anytime soon. Given the perspective of experience, however, I understand the peril of choosing a name prematurely.
Early in my third pregnancy, my two older daughters glommed onto a name I merely men...