I have to begin this post saying that when I first found out I was pregnant, we absolutely did not have a name for a boy. “We’ll figure it out” I would say, every time the “what if it’s a boy” conversation began…

Right after we were told the news of the death of our baby, Jon and I found ourselves alone in the hospital room. We were trying to make sense of hearing the worst news of our lives, confirming the fear of the past few hours. I was lying on the bed, crying. He was holding my hand, crying as well. Then he shared with me this recurring dream he had been having for weeks. In his dream he saw a storm forming in the distance, and he was distressed about it. He was trying to keep it from coming to him, even though he knew it was inevitable. The Friday before, I remember I was already feeling sick and we stopped to put gas. There was a big storm forming in the distance and Jon was particularly distressed by it.

…There in that hospital room, we knew this was our storm…

After they wheeled me into the labor and delivery room, I was extremely angry about being there. My mom was about to go down on her knees to pray by her small bed-couch and I looked up to a small window and saw a bird. I told my mom, “Look, mom, a little bird.” She looked up and indeed, there was a white bird.

I woke my husband up and told him. He, being the animal expert he is, looked at it and said, “That’s a dove, a white dove.”

“God is with us in this storm” I said. And then I said, “If it’s a boy, let’s name him Noah.” Since the dove is referenced in the Bible story of Noah’s Ark.

Well, he was born and we were told he was a boy. I smiled as big as I could, he was my little Noah…

Jon says he then heard the name “Eliot” (spelled with one L, after the poet T.S. Eliot). He asked me if I liked “Noah Eliot” and I said “that’s our baby boy’s name, Noah Eliot.”

Hours after we said goodbye, I was in the recovery room and I searched for the meaning of the name. I knew Noah was in the bible and all, but had no idea what it meant.

In Hebrew the meaning of the name Noah is: Comfort; long-lived; repose. The meaning of the name Eliot is: God on high; my God is Jehovah. From a surname derived from a medieval abbreviation of the Greek Elias. Elias-Elijah.

When people tell me, “You chose the perfect name for him!” I can’t help but say, “I did not choose it, I am convinced he chose it himself, up in heaven.”

Four days later, on Sunday, my brother’s church, which was having a series on Biblical Heroes, gave a sermon on Noah… the only whole one in a broken world.

https://vimeo.com/227936681

According to our plans, the name Noah Eliot was never an option for a baby boy had he been alive. But God has better plans. I cannot imagine any other name for my baby boy, Noah Eliot Roberts.