Three Names Before My First Birthday

My hospital bracelet said "Baby Girl." That was the only name I had for two weeks, until a foster family took me home and started calling me April — for the month I'd missed by a single day, since I was born on March 31st. Then, at seven months old, I was adopted, and I became Kristi.

Three names before my first birthday. I didn't think about that fact much until I was well into adulthood, when I was putting the pieces of my early life back together and realized how strange it actually is. Most people's names are decided once, usually before they're even born, and that's that. Mine kept changing hands along with everything else.

I don't say this to make it sound tragic. It isn't, not entirely. Each of those names came from someone who was doing their best with the information and the moment they had — a nurse filling out a form, a foster mother who wanted to call me something warmer than "the baby," adoptive parents choosing a name they hoped I'd grow into. I happen to like the name I ended up with.

But I think about "Baby Girl" and "April" sometimes, the same way you might think about a house you lived in briefly as a kid. They're real. They happened. They're part of the record even though I don't answer to them anymore.

If you've got a name — or a version of yourself — that got left behind somewhere along the way, I don't think that has to be a wound you carry forward. It can just be a fact. One of the true things about how you got here.