Waiting for Sweetpea -- An Embryo by Any Other Name

What do you call a baby that hasn't arrived yet, and hasn't reached full capacity? 

This was my dilemma when our daughter Julia announced that she was expecting our first grandchild. I first figured that I would call it he or she. But when I asked her and husband Matt if they knew the gender, she said, "Oh, we're not finding out. There are so few surprises in this world that we'd like to have this one."

All right then. How selfish of them. Didn't they know I needed a moniker to pin on this kid?
I thought back to when she first told Marie and me that she was expecting and said the baby was the size of a lentil. Yuk! What a stupid nickname for a baby. Lentil. Sounds like a Barbra Streisand musical movie. "Grandpa, can you hear me?"

But I remembered that we live in the Digital Age, so I asked Google, "What fruits and vegetables are the size of a lentil?" There was a long litany of lentil-like names, all unappealing, one popped up that seemed just right.

Sweetpea. Yes, a veggie the size of a lentil, but more euphoric.

What a great name! It's sweet! It's diminutive! It's non-gender-specific! I announced that this would be the name for this child in waiting. a way to personify this burgeoning life, and it took hold. 

Jim and Peggy embraced it, as did our son, Francis, and his wife, Angela. Soon everyone was calling the baby-to-be this name.

"How is Sweetpea doing?," we'd ask Julia ("Doing the calypso right now, I think," as she winced in pain.)

Julia used the name all the time. "I was in a business meeting, and Sweetpea got bored and started kicking my bladder. I think Sweetpea wants out!"

Julia kept up with her improvisational comedy throughout her whole pregnancy, and she could tell that the baby was getting off on her performing. "I swear, I think my adrenaline went right to Sweetpea, who thought HE was on stage. I'm sure she was saying to the audience, "Thank you everyone. I especially want to thank my mother who made all this possible." 

But now that we are near the end of this long strange trip, we four grandparents want to stop using Sweetpea and give it a real name. Problem is, not only do we not know the gender of the baby, we also don't know the names that Matt and Julia are considering. That is worrisome. It could be some really stupid or outdated names like Bertha for a girl and Elmer for a boy. Or worse, Bertha for a boy. (I apologize to any Bertha and Elmers who are reading this, but hey, face it, your names belong in the 19th century.)

So now we wait. What will the real name be? More important, what will this new person really be? Sweetpea carries the genetic fingerprints of parents, grandparents, millennia of traits going back generations. Will Sweetpea be a birder like Daddy and Grandma Peg? Will s/he get the facility with words that Mommy, Uncle Francis and Grandpop Pasquale have? Organization skills like Mommy and Grandmom Marie? Considered introspection of Grandpa Jim? The possibilities are broad.

What we really know is this. We are waiting for you, Sweetpea. We are looking to see the color of your eyes, the tint of your hair (if you are born with any), and whether or not you have a cleft in your chin. (The last trait comes from me. Hey, I want to have some positive biological imprint on this kid, certainly not my clumsiness with tools or my complete lack of physical coordination.) 

But regardless of any of this, you will be loved and warmly welcomed into this world. Just hurry the hell up, Sweetpea. It's been a long 40 weeks.