When I became pregnant with our first son Daniel, I remember the morning I took the home pregnancy test. I was excited but nervous, not wanting to take it too early and be disappointed if it was negative. So I prayed first and asked God to speak to me about this child (if I was pregnant!). I opened my Bible and read verses from the book of Daniel, and from that day on I had a feeling we would have a boy, and I was drawn to the name Daniel. We didn’t plan to announce his name until after he was born, and even though Bob liked the name all throughout my pregnancy, he waited to give his final stamp of approval until we were driving to the hospital just hours before Daniel was born.
Bob has a policy that he won’t even consider baby names until after we find out the baby’s gender. Choosing our child’s name is a significant decision, and I think the engineer side of him doesn’t want to waste time or effort. He figures it’s much more efficient to wait until we can automatically rule out at least half the name options!
In my family, we typically don’t announce a new baby’s name until right after they are born. But after my 20-week ultrasound and the Trisomy 18 diagnosis, we felt compelled to choose and announce his name right away since we don’t know how long we’ll have him with us, and we want people to be able to pray for our baby by name.
We have given our son the name Samuel David, meaning “God has heard” and “Beloved.”
Samuel: “God has heard”
The story of Samuel in 1 Samuel 1-2 resonates deeply with our hearts for this boy. Samuel was the one boy’s name I liked before finding out his gender (shh, don’t tell Bob I did a little preliminary baby name searching on my own!) After the ultrasound that revealed Samuel’s abnormalities, I was awake for hours in the middle of the night, weeping, praying, journaling, listening to worship songs and crying out to God. During that time I opened my Bible to 1 Samuel and read the first couple chapters.
In the story, Hannah is barren and cries out to God for a son, and she promises to give him to the Lord for all the days of his life. Miraculously, God answers Hannah’s prayer and she conceives, and — even more amazingly to me as a mother — Hannah keeps her promise. After weaning her son, she brings him to the temple, and he grows up in the presence of the Lord. I can’t even imagine what her mother’s heart experienced as she counted down her time with Samuel during those early months and years, bonding with her new son yet knowing he was not hers to keep. My eyes fell on several verses that left me in tears:
“As soon as the child is weaned I will bring him, so that he may appear in the presence of the Lord and dwell there forever.” (1 Samuel 1:22 ESV)
“For this child I prayed, and the Lord has granted me my petition that I made to Him. Therefore, I have lent him to the Lord. As long as he lives, he is lent to the Lord. And he worshiped the Lord there.” (1 Samuel 1:27-28 ESV)
We are continually praying for our son’s health and life. We know God is fully able to do a miracle and heal him completely if He chooses. But whether He does or not, we have dedicated Samuel to God. We know he is a gift of God for us to hold and cherish for possibly just a short time, and whenever that time ends we will release him to the presence of God. Since we chose his name, I’ve been playing worship songs and singing as I pray over Samuel. If the time comes that we need to send Samuel to grow up in the presence of God, I want him to feel right at home when he arrives!
David: “Beloved”
We decided to pass on Bob’s middle name as a gift to our son from his father. We love that David in the Bible was a worshiper, and a man after God’s own heart. 1 Samuel 16:7 says about David, “…Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature… for the Lord does not see as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” The doctors can tell us all the problems the ultrasound shows, but we know those physical issues do not define our son.
With this pregnancy, I’ve felt more cautious and less bonded with this baby. I have several friends who’ve had miscarriages or stillbirths, and somehow that felt like a more real possibility this time. Once we got the Trisomy 18 diagnosis, I knew it would be easy to try to protect my heart from caring too much, since chances are high that we will lose him. But I want to do the opposite, and even if I only have a few weeks left with Samuel or a few moments after he’s born, I asked God to give me a deep love for this baby. Bob and I want to pour out our love on Samuel in whatever time we have with him. We see him as created by God and deeply loved, and we wanted his middle name to reflect that.
Kniley Family Updates 