Matthew

When we went into the hospital in July, we didn't have a name picked out yet.  We had been waiting until we knew if it was a boy or a girl to even really discuss names.  We had only known that it was a boy for 30 minutes or so before we were admitted to the hospital.  As I was being wheeled into surgery, I remember thinking how horrible it would be if he died with out a name.  Everything went well and then we were so focused on saving the baby we didn't talk about names for a few weeks after I came home.  We went through and each picked a list of names we liked and then went through each other's lists.  We got the lists narrowed down to two, one I had picked and one Clay had picked.  We ended up going with the name I had picked, Kyler, because it was less common and easier to spell.  Kyler didn't mean anything special.  I just really liked the name Kyle but thought it was a little to plain and popular.  I figured with Kyler he'd have a few options.  If he wanted he could be called Kyle or Ky.  It was such a relief to have a first name, we didn't even want to think about middle names.  He was just Kyler no middle name Ottley for a couple months.  It was after we were "out of the woods" that we picked his middle name.  I think we actually decided on Matthew after I was released from bedrest.  After making it through such a difficult pregnancy (we thought), we wanted his middle name to mean something.  We were looking at names that strength, gift, fighter.  Clay got to make the final decision on the middle name since I "won" with the first name.  Clay decided on Matthew meaning "Gift of God".  It was perfect.  After Kyler was stillborn we decided to keep the name we had decided upon.  It was his, we had picked it for him.  I'm glad we kept it.  Even if he died he was still a gift from god.