Emily: Hard working, industrious, striving
I have always liked this name. In fact, it was one of the first names I thought of when I knew we were having a girl. Jody didn’t mind it, but preferred other names to this, so there was a lot of back and forth on what we would call her. We knew we wanted a classic name that would suit her in both her youth and beyond. Once she was born and in the recovery room at the General Hospital, Jody came back to check on me while I was being sutured. He said “What do you think of the name Emily?” I had told him “I always liked that name, but I thought you didn’t?” He advised me on what was going on in the recovery room and that not only was our Boolie’s preliminary nurse in recovery named Emily, but so was one of her CHEO transport team members. The same member, in fact, that allowed me to see and touch her before they took her over to CHEO. I knew that we’d finally found our baby’s name, but needed to really see and hold her first – just to be sure!
Oswin: “The Impossible Girl”, divine friend
From the get-go, our baby girl was what could only be described as ‘Impossible’. Not only was I someone that wasn’t sure that they’d ever have kids (thank you grade 9 health class birthing video!), but when we first found out about her omphalocele complications, we thought it would be next to impossible for our girl to make it. Once genetics came back clear, we knew that the big thing we were dealing with was the O-factor. Additionally, I’m a huge Doctor Who fan – so much so, that my wedding vows to Jody were inspired by the show itself. The latest companion to the Doctor was first introduced to us as Oswin, and later as Clara Oswin Oswald. She was known to the Doctor as ‘The Impossible Girl’ because she was to have been not possible as she’d met the Doctor in various timelines. She was a mystery to him as much as our baby girl was to us given the circumstances.
Now that we have her name and are feeling a bit more rested, we are delighted to share a few photos of our girl with you and will update with more regarding her actual omphalocele (before and after), but for now, please enjoy our beautiful Emily Oswin!