We chose to name both our first two babies that we lost through miscarriage, Avery and Hayden. It was important to us to cherish the lives God gave us, even if we could not keep Avery or Hayden with us here on earth. Naming our little ones was one of the big ways we were able connect and remember them. Having a unisex name was important to us, since we did not get to know the gender before we miscarried.
Both times we chose names, we spent several heart-breaking hours or days trying to find a name that fit, but this time we settled on a name in roughly 30 seconds. Interestingly, we've made a short list of names each time, and each time we've had to name another little one, we’ve gone back to our previous list none of the other names fit anymore.
We ultimately chose Hadley Hope Chiu.
Beyond just being a unisex name, Hadley had a very special meaning to us, as it is a name of a local town in Western Mass. The name Hadley represented our time in Massachusetts, but more importantly our friends who meant more to us than we could ever describe. They walked with us through each step of our infertility journey with several miscarriages, procedures, and ultimately IVF. They supported us through it all, and beyond their support during our grief, their friendship means the world to us.
The name Hope represented the hope we have in the saving work of Christ, the hope we have in the promise that God will one day give us a child to love and cherish on this side of Heaven, and the hope we have that we will see all of our little ones again in Heaven one day. Also, the Lord brought Romans 5:3-5 to both of our hearts, it says (emphasis added):
Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.
The next day, without knowing the name we had chosen, our pastor texted us an encouragement "Mourn hard and Mourn with hope (Matthew 5:4; Luke 6:21)." Just another way God was reminding us to grieve fully and with our hope completely in Him.
A few weeks after our loss, Evan's parents also sent us this precious willow tree statue. It is another beautiful reminder to HOPE...
