Why We Named Whitney

We've had a few people express surprise that we named Whitney already. We have two reasons:

First, Whitney is a person, and it is easier to pray about a person instead of "Matt & Susan's baby" or "the baby." By naming her, we hope that people will have an easier time praying.

Second, Whitney is a person, not a blob of living flesh. People have names, blobs don't. By naming Whitney, we are trying to honor her personhood as well as the God whose image she bears. We have already been asked if we want to "change the outcome" of the pregnancy. By naming Whitney, we hope to clue the medical personnel we deal with that life begins at conception. We also hope to deter them from referring to Whitney as a fetus.

We had a name for her if she had been a boy, but we're not telling.