The Name Joy

So many things have happened since April 24th the day of our 16 week ultrasound, that I do not remember if I have a few things on record. I wanted to make sure that I remembered how we decided on her name. Ever since I had been a teenager I had wanted to name a daughter Eleda after my great grandmother. She passed away before my grandma and grandpa were married and I had done a "report" on her and loved her stories. Justin really didn't like the name much. We had talked about the name with earlier pregnancies and I remember this from that time.
The funny thing is, I really didn't give it a second thought when we found out our baby was probably a girl. Now looking back I know it wasn't supposed to be her name. On April 26th I remember I was standing by the bathroom sink. Our sink is outside of our bathroom kinda in a hallway type thing. I don't remember what I was doing but I remember I was standing there. I just remember the name Joy coming into my head and LOVING it. I don't even remember if I was thinking of names at the time. I sent a text to Justin "we could name her Joy" and he texted back "love it". That was it. Our conversation stopped there and her name was Joy.
It is so funny that when I thought of her name, I honestly didn't remember ever hearing it as a name. Now I hear it all the time, but I just felt like it fit her so perfectly. We had joked with other pregnancies about naming the girls with b names but all we could come up with was Bertha or Beulla so we scratched that.
Our brother in law has come up with a nickname for our family, Jteam. One of the hardest things about losing a child is not being able to fit their puzzle piece in with the rest of the family. Joy is a huge part of our family and I wanted her piece to fit perfectly so it seemed only fitting to have her name start with a J. I never thought that her name would have such an impact on me. I do not see hear or look at the word joy the same. That word has an incredibly special meaning to me. I even find myself counting how many times I hear it in one day or finding different quotes we could stick up that have her name hidden in it. I LOVE that! So excited for Christmastime!!
The definition of Joy is: a feeling of great delight and happiness. I could not explain her time here in a better way. We were looking at pictures and even Jace my five year old commented on how he missed the days when I was pregnant because they were so happy. Her presence brought with her a constant feeling of happiness.
Her middle name is Marie. It is also my middle name, my mothers middle name, and my grandmothers middle name. I felt like it complimented her first name just perfectly.
When we found out about Joy we felt like it would be easier to wait until all of our decisions were made and that we had our 20 week ultrasound to confirm her gender before we posted anything on our family blog. So a week after our ultrasound I did our first post about Joy titled Sunshine and Rain. At this point we had decided that the best thing for our family would be to attempt to carry her to term and let her and our Father in Heaven decide when it was her time to go. After a few posts I decided that I wanted to have a blog just for Joy. I knew that I wanted our family blog to be able to be private but I wanted people to read her story and I prayed that it would be a positive light for those who could be going through the same thing. When I read the stories on the anencephalie info website most of them were just sad. I prayed that Joy's would be happy no matter how it happened. All of these sweet anencephalic babies are children of our Heavenly Father He loves them. They truly deserve to have all the happiness and joy in their short little lives. I have felt so strongly a number of times that Joy does not want me to be sad. I have felt loving arms around me to comfort and bring me peace. She wanted her life to be a joyful experience and I will always look back at it as one of the most joyful experiences of my life.
I typed the word Joy into the search engine on LDS.org and the talk Joy in the Journey, by President Thomas S. Monson was one of the first ones. I posted the quote that is on the right side of my blog because it spoke just what I was feeling, that we were going to be grateful for our baby girl and for this experience with her was going to be the hardest thing that we have gone through but that we would be able to find JOY and continue on with joy. The impact that quote has had in our Journey with her is much larger then I ever thought it would be. I am so excited that it will also be on her headstone to remind us.
Joy brings me such joy in my own journey. I am so lucky to know that I have my beautiful baby girl that I get to raise in a place where we will have all the joy in the world with no pain or sickness. What an amazing experience I have to look forward to while still finding joy in my journey here.