::Miles:: Part V: his name

(Part I can be found HERE, part II can be found HERE part III can be found HERE part IV can be found HERE)
 
This post could also be called "The one where we KNEW Miles was meant to be in our family"

Back when we started trying to have children we had a couple names we really liked...unfortunately they were all girl names.  When we were planning on adopting the twins last summer we started looking for boy names we liked...the list was short.  We are band geeks, so Miles (as in Miles Davis) came to mind.  It was also fresh on our minds because we had been watching LOST and one of the characters was named Miles.  It was our front runner boy name and stayed in that position since.  The problem was we could not find a middle name we liked paired with it.  We wanted it to mean something, so we tried all the family names we could think of...Nathan's middle name, his father's name, his grandfather's name, same with my side of the family.  But we could never come up with something we loved...something that just rolled off the tongue.  

I remember telling someone once that maybe we couldn't come up with one because we weren't meant to.  Fast forward to this situation.  We knew we wanted to call him Miles, but still couldn't decide on a middle name.  Amy called us and said that T had been calling the baby by a name the whole pregnancy and wondered if we would consider using it.  I told her we would consider it...but I wanted to know what it was first.  Afterall, I didn't want a baby named Miles Crowbar or Miles Hankypanky.  When she told me the name it sucked my breath away: Elijah.  I loved it.  It was actually on our short list last summer...and it also happens to be my maternal great-grandfather's middle name.  Seriously.  Nathan is not one for signs...but even he couldn't dispute that her using the name Elijah was a sign that Miles was meant to be in our home.  When we met with T on placement day we told her we planned on using the name as his middle name...so he'd always have a connection to her and yet it was still a family name.  She was touched that we would keep it and use it somehow. 

Many people have asked if we named him Miles because of all the miles we had to travel to get him.  I had never considered it until someone mentioned it on Facebook.  The answer is no...but it does fit.  We did have to travel MANY miles...both literally and figuratively...to get our little Miles.  But I tell you what...all those miles were totally worth it.