“You can’t be serious.” I could not believe the man sitting across from me was the same one who had objected to naming our prospective daughter Alannah because the name sounded too much like the state capital. But then I remembered there are men who experience sympathy pregnancy symptoms along with their wives, so maybe my husband was dealing with his own case of preggy brains.

Still, I was incredulous. “Portia? You would actually name our daughter Portia?”

Chip raised his hands in surrender. “Okay, okay. You're right. That was dumb.” He scratched through the name on the piece of paper he held and sighed. “Your turn.”

“Holly.”

He shook his head. “You don't want people associating our daughter with anything prickly. Besides, you're due in February, not December.”

“Valentine, then?”

“Be serious.”

These were just the most recent casualties we’d tossed out and subsequently backed over in a bid to find a girl’s name we both liked.

I loved Emma but he thought it was too trendy. He loved Emily but I didn’t care for it. And on it went, until we struck through all the names on each of our lists.

We haven’t reached a consensus yet, but we did agree on one thing: God sure knew what he was doing when he decided the length of a woman’s gestation would be nine months. Apparently that’s just about the length of time a husband and wife need in order to figure out what to call the little booger.