“This is impossible!” Blaine cried out, throwing his hands up in frustration. “We’re just going to have to call her Baby Girl for the first few weeks, aren’t we.”

“Absolutely not,” Kurt retorted. “No child of mine is coming into this world nameless.”

“Well then, we better decide quickly, Kurt. She’s due in three weeks, and that’s assuming Rebecca doesn’t go into labor early. Although if our kid is anything like you, she’s far more likely to be late than early,” Blaine teased, nudging Kurt’s shoulder with his own.

They were sitting side by side in bed, with each of their laptops open and a stack of baby name books in between them, as they had done nearly every night for the past week. There had always been an excuse to delay picking out the baby’s name: Kurt had refused to even think about it until they were sure that Rebecca, their surrogate, was actually pregnant, then they decided it would be easier to wait until they found out the sex of the baby, but by that time they were so focused on fixing up the nursery and getting all the baby gear they needed that time had just slipped away from them. So when they entered the ninth month having made absolutely no progress on the naming front, the panic set in.

“Are you sure you don’t want to name her after your mom, Kurt?” Blaine asked quietly, knowing this was always a little bit of a sensitive topic for his husband. “Elizabeth is a beautiful name, and it’d be a nice way to honor her.”

Kurt sighed, leaning back against the headboard and closing his eyes. “Yes, I’m sure. I know it’s weird, but I kind of want her to be the only Elizabeth in my life, even though I really didn’t know her for that long.” He turned to Blaine and peeked at him through barely open eyes. “Is that alright?”

Blaine grabbed his hand, kissed his knuckles, then rubbed him thumb soothingly along the back. “Of course.”

They each turned back to their computer screens and were quiet for a moment before Kurt whispered, “I wish you could have met her.”

“Me too, babe. Me too,” Blaine replied, gently squeezing Kurt’s hand.

They searched silently for several more minutes, each using one hand to click through various naming websites while their other hands rested, still joined, on the bed between them.

“Here’s an idea,” Kurt broke the silence as he let go of Blaine’s hand to reach forward for a book that had scooted its way almost to the end of the bed. “We could use a name that’s sort of like Elizabeth. Oh! How about Eliza? We could even call her Liza for short!?

Blaine raised his eyebrows. “Really, Kurt? It’s already going to be clear that this girl has two gay dads, do we really need to make it even more obvious?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Eliza Doolittle, from My Fair Lady? And even worse, Liza Minelli, icon to gay men everywhere? It’s kind of like beating a dead horse. A dead gay horse.

Kurt stared at Blaine, eyebrows knitted in confusion. “I sure did pick a weird one to marry.”

Blaine stuck his tongue out at Kurt before replying. “But seriously, Kurt. Two guys with a daughter named Liza? May as well name her Cher—“

“Oooh, Cher!” Kurt interrupted.

“No,” Blaine said without even looking up from his computer.

“Madonna?”

“Never.”

“Kathy Griffin?”

“Pleeeease focus, Kurt.”

“So I take it that’s a no on Kathy Griffin?”
Blaine shot Kurt a look out of the corner of his eye.

“Alright, alright, I’ll be serious. But if it’s going to be this hard to make a decision, I’m getting a glass of wine. Want one?”

“Oh god, yes,” Blaine groaned, rubbing his hands across his face as he leaned back and closed his eyes, feeling the mattress shift as Kurt climbed out of their bed. He was mentally and emotionally exhausted from the whole process. It was such a huge responsibility—picking the name that another human being, their child, would carry throughout her entire life.

He opened his eyes when Kurt came bounding back into their bedroom, deftly handing Blaine a glass before settling back in beside him. “I’ve got it!” he announced. “It’s the perfect name, you’ll love it.”

“Do tell,” Blaine asked before taking a long sip.

“Vivienne. Don’t you love it?”

“Let me guess—you thought of it when you saw your new Westwood coat hanging in the closet?”

“Maybe…” Kurt hedged.

Blaine sighed. “I’d really rather not name our kid after a designer. And you work with clothes all day—do you really want to be thinking about work when you come home every evening?”

“I guess not. So that means Alexandra McQueen is out, too?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“Drat. And there are so many pretty designer names, too. You’re lucky you don’t have this problem. Not a whole lot of famous drama and music teachers out there.”

“Excuse me, I believe one Mr. Will Schuester would disagree!”

“I wouldn’t exactly call him famous. And we’re having a girl, Blaine.”

“Wilhelmina Schuester?”

“Dear god, no!” Kurt laughed.

“See?” Blaine grinned as Kurt continued to giggle into his wine. “That’s how I feel when you go off on your little tangents.”

Kurt took a deep breath and let it out in a whoosh. “Okay, back on track now.” They returned to their search, but it wasn’t thirty seconds before Kurt was slamming his computer shut.

“Dammit! Why is this so hard? I’d call my dad if I thought he’d have anything remotely helpful to say, but my parents were obviously a little lacking in naming creativity. I can’t believe they picked a name one letter different from my dad’s and then didn’t even give me a middle name to go with it!” He looked over a Blaine, whose eyes were still wide from Kurt’s sudden outburst.
“This kid needs to have a kick-ass middle name, Blaine!” Kurt shrieked, getting a little hysterical.

“Shh, calm down sweetie, of course. But first things first… literally. We need a first name before we can do anything else.”

“I know. I just always felt so gypped because I didn’t have a middle name. I was jealous of all the other kids, even the ones who hated their middle names.”

“Is that when you started referring to yourself as Kurt Elizabeth Hummel?”

“Yeah,” Kurt sighed, taking a long sip of his wine. He looked over at Blaine with sleepy eyes. “For some reason 10 year old me didn’t realize that that would just make things worse.”

“Well, I think it was sweet of you to use your mom’s name, but I can see how that may have been lost on the other kids.”

Kurt grabbed Blaine’s hand in both of his. “You know, we keep talking about my mom, but what about yours? Would you want to name our daughter after her?”

Blaine raised an eyebrow. “I appreciate the sentiment, but really, Kurt?”

“What?”

“Naming our daughter Barbara? Beating the dead gay horse again, sweetie.”

Kurt dropped Blaine’s hand and glared. “Fine. But you know Rachel would approve.”

“And since when do we take advice from Rachel?”

“Good point.” Kurt picked up one of the books and thumbed through it, far too quickly to actually read any of the names, then threw it back down on the bed. “We’re getting nowhere. Five names, rapid-fire. Go!”

“Anne,” Blaine started the game they sometimes played to get each other’s gut reactions to names the other was thinking about.

“Too boring,” Kurt replied. “Azalea.”

“Too flowery. Ruth.”

“Hmmm… maybe. Marigold.”

“Are all your names flowers? Helen.”

“No. Jessalynn.”

“Definitely not. Kristin.”

“Chenowith? Love her, but no. Evelina.”

“Maybe? Nickname Evie? Marie.

“Eh, not so much. Clementine.”

“At least you’ve moved from flowers to fruit! But no.”

Kurt slumped down from where he was sitting against the headboard until he was almost laying down. “So out of all that we’ve got tentative maybes on Ruth and Evelina. Care to discuss further?”

Blaine closed his laptop and set it on his nightstand. He gathered all their baby name books and stacked them next to the bed before scooting down to lie next to Kurt, grabbing his hand and intertwining their fingers. “They’re both nice names, but do you really feel anything about them, Kurt?”

Kurt shook his head, frowning.

“Me neither. And as much as I want out daughter to have a beautiful, awesome, kick-ass name, I also want it to mean something.”

“Isn’t that why we have all those books? To find names with nice meanings?”

“Yes, but I meant that I want it to mean something to us. A name we think is special, that has some kind of importance.”

“That sounds great, babe, but we’ve been at this for weeks now with no progress. How are we going to find that perfect name in so little time?”

Blaine looked down at their hands, squeezing Kurt’s as he scooted a little closer. “Well…”

“You’ve already got something in mind, don’t you.”

“Maybe…”

“Spill it, Blaine. As much as I love your adorable coyness, we really don’t have time for it right now.”

Blaine looked up into Kurt’s bright eyes. “It’s kind of cheesy,” he said with genuine concern.

“I promise I won’t laugh,” Kurt said softly. “Please just tell me.”

“Okay,” Blaine grinned. “I was thinking about how this baby is going to change our lives forever. And that got me thinking about another time my life changed in an instant,” he said, scooting a few inches closer to Kurt and tangling their legs together. “I was in a rush to get to a performance when someone tapped me on the shoulder. And I turned around and saw these eyes just staring down at me. And it was all I could do to keep my jaw from hitting the floor. Then he spoke to me, and I’d never heard a voice like his, and all I wanted to do was stay and listen some more. But instead I dragged him along to come listen to me instead. And I sang to him. For the first time in so long, I wasn’t scared to show my feelings. I didn’t even pretend like the little looks and grins were part of the performance; I was singing just for him. And his smile was lighting up the room until it was all I could see.” Blaine paused to lean forward and kiss the tip of Kurt’s nose. Kurt’s eyes were welling up with happy tears, and he was blinking rapidly to try to keep them in.

“And from that day forward, I couldn’t hear that song without thinking about that boy, or see that boy without hearing music in my head. And though it took several months and many stupid Blaine-moments to figure it out, I was in love with him. That day, that song, became one of the most defining moments of my life, one of the things that is most special to me. To us.”

Kurt was definitely crying now, tears slipping from the corners of his eyes, running down his nose and dripping onto the pillowcase. This time Blaine pressed a quick kiss to his lips before using their still-joined hands to gently wipe the tear tracks off his face.

“I know we said we didn’t want to name our child after anything like designers or teachers or cultural icons. But maybe we could make an exception for the pop star whose song changed the course of our entire lives?” Blaine looked into Kurt’s red-rimmed but still beautiful eyes. “Do you want to name her Katy? Kathryn for official purposes, of course, but--”

He was silenced by Kurt’s kiss, long and deep and insistent. It took a moment of struggling to get their linked hands free from where they had gotten trapped between their chests, but when they did they wrapped them around each other, pulling closer until there was no space between them, their legs and hips slotted together perfectly.

“See?” Blaine said quietly when their lips finally parted. “We still fit together like puzzle pieces. Must be a sign,” he said with a smirk.

“You idiot,” Kurt giggled, ducking his head to nuzzle down under Blaine’s chin. “I think I would have agreed to Katy even without the monologue, but I certainly appreciate it.”

“So, Kathryn it is?”

“Yes,” Kurt replied simply. “Kathryn Eliza Anderson-Hummel.”

Blaine grinned. “I can’t wait to meet her,” he said, kissing the top of Kurt’s head as he snuggled down and closed his eyes.