Pregnant Pause

The name was obviously perfect as soon as it came out of my mouth, during a sleepy bedtime conversation with my husband about what we plan to call our son. I spent months struggling to imagine using any of the perfectly fine names on our original shortlist, but this one was everything we wanted: classic without being archaic, familiar without being common, striking in its full form without being awkward in the diminutive. It’s a name I can’t wait to share—which is why I was surprised to find myself on a windswept street corner a few weeks ago, admonishing my husband for putting it in a text message as I shivered in the cold January night.

“Don’t do that! Bad luck! Shhh!” I tapped out in a frenzy.

“Can’t help it!” he responded.

A clammy wave of fear and irritation washed through me. “But what about the Angel of Death?” I typed, before promptly erasing it. The Angel of Death? In stark black-and-white pixels, on a screen powered by electricity and chemicals and human ingenuity, it looked crazy. I shoved the phone into my bag and slid my gloves back on.

http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-life-and-religion/90417/pregnant-pa...