The list started as a joke—names scrawled on a napkin over brunch, half of them ridiculous.


“Octavius?” Elara asked, laughing with a bite of croissant in her mouth.


Michael shrugged, grinning. “It’s regal. Mysterious. And don’t act like you didn’t suggest Moonbeam yesterday.”


They tossed names back and forth over the next few weeks, some serious, some not. But beneath the playfulness was something deeper. Each name was a hope, a whisper of the kind of soul they were preparing to welcome.



---


One evening, they sat on the rug in the nursery, surrounded by pages of name ideas. Elara rested her hand on her belly, now rounding gently beneath her soft shirt.


“What do you want their name to mean?” she asked quietly.


Michael thought for a long moment. “Strength. Grace. Joy. A name that feels like sunlight.”


Elara smiled. “I want it to carry roots. Like a song passed down.”



---


They narrowed it down to four names—two for a girl, two for a boy. They wouldn’t know the baby’s gender for a few more weeks, but Elara didn’t mind. The names felt like seeds in the soil, waiting.


As they folded the final list into her journal, Michael took her hand and looked at her seriously.


“We should make a promise,” he said.


“To the baby?”


He shook his head. “To each other. That even when we’re tired… overwhelmed… scared—we still choose to show up.”


Elara felt her throat tighten. “Yes. Always.”


He placed his hand over hers, now both resting on the rise of her belly.


“We name them with love,” he said. “And we raise them with it, too.”



---


That night, Elara sat by the window again, journal in lap, moonlight spilling across the page:


"Dear little one—

We do not know your name yet.

But we speak it in laughter,

in soft conversations by moonlight.

You are a promise.

And we are ready."