When the U.S. Embassy names your kid.

I have alluded to the fact that so much that was important to me prior to our trip - BE (before Ethiopia) or BT (before Teamir) - no longer carries quite the importance. I can't look at much of anything the same way anymore. I feel nauseous watching platinum wedding shows, catch myself lamenting our lack of vacation this year and resolving that future funds will be going to bringing a sibling home and some humanitarian causes and not so much basking on a far away beach. I have become the water witch in our household, frustrated with people who think water is an infinite resource and knowing the lack of it causes famine after famine not only in Teamir's country, but state of origin. I find myself sobbing at Michael Jackson's Man in the Mirror video as much of the famine footage is not too far from where Teamir was brought into this world and that the famine issues continue and didn't go away when people stopped wearing their USA for Africa shirts. My heart has been touched. I am not asking for accolades nor am I sitting in an ivory tower all of a sudden. I am sure the pendulum will balance itself a bit.

Naming Teamir was such a huge issue for me - I couldn't decide - sort of the "this may be the only time I ever bestow a name on a child and it must be significant and have meaning". I knew we would retain part of his birth name. The human part of me was wishing for a cool birth name - something with an Abe in it or maybe Solomon or Jonas or just cool! Teamir's birth name has meaning but is a bear to sound out phonetically. It sounds more like Tah-amer - with a tongue roll on the end. People try Teemer, Tee MEER. It means "miracle" and without exaggeration, his medical history and social history confirms that he is indeed a miracle. He could have become one of those faces in the Michael Jackson video easily. He even briefly lost his birthname, but another relative knew it when interviewed for his social history so there was no way I was going to mess with that. It would slide snugly in the middle where no one would ever see it.

I digress. We toyed with many names - missionary names like Hudson (Hudson Taylor), Elliott (Jim Elliott), family names like Will and Henry, Biblical names like Asher. We arrived at Gabriel one Saturday afternoon. And so it was done - or so we thought. Gabriel Teamir - and throw in an Archer for a really great reserve wine I discovered called Gabriel Archer.

When we traveled, I was bowled over by everything. Our trip was a comedy of errors. We are pretty low maintenance people but created a lot of incountry stress by our spontaneous trip to Teamir's area of birth - this is a long complicated story and one that is hard to convey, but suffice it to say our intentions were innocent and we are sorry for creating more work for an already overworked incountry staff. I love Gladney. After that trip where we heard Teamir's name chirped several times and were asked by complete strangers if we were aware of the meaning of his name, Gabriel took a sudden backseat and nevermind about Archer.

When you go to the embassy and also purchase your child's airline ticket, everything will be under their first name and your husband's first and last name (not sure what happens with singles). Our ticket said Teamir David. The first week home I had to answer a lot as to why we not addressing Teamir as Gabriel already. I felt guilty (especially with regard to one of my very best friends who had gotten something personalized for him - she gets it though). I made all kinds of excuses knowing more and more that the likelihood of transitioning was becoming less and less. Add to that the fact that I always dreamed of naming a little one after their father. This also falls in line with the typical naming practice of a given name and then the father's given name. David means beloved. I never thought in a million years I would relinquish the importance of naming my child. But his first mother and his future gov't with the help of God gave him a name more perfect than I could ever have bestowed. So Teamir (Tommer - our english butchering) David it is - or TD as in T.D. Jakes.

Peace