— deciding her name wasn’t easy… —

It wasn’t easy this time. During my last (and first) pregnancy with my son, picking his name was easy. We’d had it selected (well, my husband actually picked it, but I loved it instantly) since before we were even married. When we learned the baby was a boy, it was a done deal. No hassle. No debate. No “what about this” to go back and forth.

Not so this time. At least not on the first name. Her middle name was a done deal since before we found out Cameron was a boy. But the first name? Lordy-be.

Fortunately it only took about 2 weeks of real actual debating, but we finally settled on a name my husband and I could both love. The top two names were my choices (Piper and Paige), the bottom two were his (Addison and Avery). We had rules – nothing in the top 20 most popular names FOR SURE, and the lower down the list the better. Plus it had to have a fairly common spelling (since we’ve both grown up with constant mis-pronunciations/misspellings of our own names).

And so we chose Elena.

Elena Phoenix. And I already can’t wait to meet her.

And in case you were wondering, the pronunciation is Eh-LAY-nuh. Just thought I’d clear that up in case anyone was curious.