The moment I got a positive read on my pregnancy test with Sylvia I knew she was girl. I just knew. We found out at about 8-9 weeks with blood work that, yes, for certain, she was a girl. In that intermittent time we still tossed around boy names just because thats the direction most conversations of hopefulness in the beginning stages of pregnancy go. Carlos was adamant about her name being Sylvia and in fact long before we even went off birth control, he had told me that his first daughter would have that name. Boy names were hard for us though, we couldn’t agree and every name we came up with sounded wrong. Looking back, I am sure this was because I knew she was girl so the idea of a boy name seemed crazy. But in that time I could not get the name ‘Leo’ out of my mind. It was the only one I even liked and it was the only name I could even envision using for our son. Carlos didn’t love it and eventually, the week or so before we found out official results we agreed to just not talk about names because the conversations truly were going around in circles. Sylvia’s name is perfect. It fit her, poetically now that she has died and sometimes I can’t believe we came up with such a beautiful name for an equally beautiful little girl.  Continue reading →