The Months seemed to fly by. Every doctor’s appointment came and went and was uneventful. He was big and he was healthy… The only struggle seemed to be getting Jake to pick a semi normal name. We had a thing for the unusual and or interesting names. Quick side scoot on names… My oldest was Halli Ann Polikmana Fields for my entire pregnancy. I love the name Halli and I wanted it to be spelled like Alli with an H. I was dead set and had no backlash from Jake at all. Until my final doctor’s appointment when he told me he HATED the name and really didn’t want to name his child Halli Ann. It was "too southern bell" and he didn’t like it. I was bothered because I had a gift already sent to us with her initials, HPF, monogrammed on a gorgeous silver cup.
He listed a bunch of names and the one he really wanted I really didn’t… In the second Little Mermaid movie, Ariel has a daughter, and the way everyone said this daughter’s name the whole movie irritated me as a kid and even into adulthood… So when Jake chose “Melody” I cringed…. Or as my oldest likes to say “It was so cringe!” Cringe.. where do we come up with these slang terms?… Anywho… I fought it a bit… but I also was trying to fight to keep him so I was willing to let it slide when he said it was for the melodic purposes (he’s a dancer and music is important to him.) So… Melody it was…
Now the next part…. In his family each kid has 2 middle names. The girls have a flower and
Spanish name, the boys had am “english” and native name… Jake wanted to keep this tradition alive… So as we were thinking of other names in the waiting room for this appointment he started throwing out the names of Pokemon. You guys… I about died. Like WHAAAAAT?!?!?! POKEMON?!? My daughter was not going to be named after a pokemon… Spoiler?…. I caved… But it’s a really pretty one! Now we had Melody Roselia(roh-sehl-ya). We kept her native name from the first round. Polikmana (poh-leak-ma-nah) which means butterfly maiden in Hopi. So she deserted her first given name Halli Ann Polikmana Fields to Melody Roselia Polikmana Fields.
For our second daughter we were loving Addison and Margaux a lot.. One day Jake came home from work and said “… what about the name Versailles? Huh, huh??? It’s pretty, it’s unique…” My first instinct was…. WHAT? What kind of name is that? We had narrowed it down to two names… Now we were throwing another one in… He asked me to think about it… I told him if he could give me some middle names to play with and some nicknames I would consider it… We came up with
Vee, Sai, Sai Sai, and he could even nickname her after a Pokemon… Sai duck (Psyduck).Then he threw out some middle names and none really worked for me until he threw out his older sister’s… Iliana (ill-ee-ah-nuh). Versailles Iliana. I liked the way that flowed and sounded… It was on my list.. I started playing with writing down the names we were thinking about and Versailles started to really stand out… I started to LOVE it… but what native name would we use? I did some research and fell in love with Hotsko. It meant Owl… Versailles Iliana Hotsko Fields. Done! not so done… We announced her birth over social media and Jake’s Hopi grandpa quickly weighed in that it meant SCREECH OWL… Which was not a good thing in Native Life. So quick retraction for translation error and we ended with Mongmana (Moe-ng-mah-nuh) which means Owl Maiden in Hopi… Rewind… Welcome to the world Versailles Iliana Mongmana Fields.
Now as we prepared for boy names, I had found a list of baby names we had come up with years previously when we dated and talked about our future family… We had girls names and boys names… Majority of our boys names with famous ballet men. Nicholi, Mikhail… etc. This round Jake wanted crazy names… Constantine, Mokuba (Yugi-oh), Cyther… Just bizarre names….. Again I made him give me nicknames and middle names… Some sounded okay but it was not my favorite… He had decided his top name was Mokuba and we could call him Mo, Moki, Ku, Moke… he came up with a lot… but it was hard for me to swallow… I left it on our top list… I started digging into these names and doing research… Now funny fact… When I got married, my Uncle Steve gave me a beautiful book with a cute promise written on a piece of lined paper and signed by me, my uncle and two witnesses. This note stated that I would still play with my Uncle even after I was married. A similar verbal promise was made to name my first born son after my uncle Steve.
Nothing Against the name Steve but it wasn’t my jam as an adult… I started to look up Steve in different languages… were there any I liked? Additionally Stephen is my father in law’s middle name, so I liked the symmetry of keeping my promise and honoring jake’s dad… It would not have been the end of everything, but I was interested to see… I found one! A native name for Steven. Not the tribes Jake’s family was part of, but Atian was said to mean Steven. I loved it! I put it on the list! Started with an A like my name, was a native name and would work for Steve my uncle, and Stephen my father in law’s middle name. Jake wasn’t a huge fan, and I don’t think I have ever told him about my promise to my uncle… He would find it silly. Jake considered it for a middle name. So my search continued….. I scoured websites for boys names… I wanted
something that wasn’t super common. I came across Mateo. Meaning Matthew in Spanish and Gift from God in Hebrew. We could call him Mat, Teo, Teytey and more names developed from there… It took time but I convinced Jake it was the name I wanted and told him I had let him decide the others and would really like the chance to name our son… Mateo Atian had started to take shape. What would his native name be? Jake had always wanted his son to carry HIS native name… It sounded a little funky so we went with his Brother’s, Matowi (muh-tow-ee) which means sun bear. Thus we chose Mateo Atian Matowi Fields.
That’s how their names were chosen and the battles to creating their whole names. But anyway.. Mateo was a really fast and basic pregnancy. He seemed to want to come early and that was hard for me… He scared me a lot, I came in often to labor and delivery to get checked out and much to Jake’s dismay. I mean no one likes sitting in L&D for hours to be told nothing is going on.. Especially in the wee hours of the morning when he had to open the store. I always felt terrible. But I would rather be safe than sorry. At the time we had been borrowing an old vehicle of my parents… It was not registered but we only used it for Jake to go back and forth to work. The car was in the process of getting work done to get registered but it’s temps had expired…
One night when Jake was working until midnight, he called me to tell me he was coming home. He worked 3 minutes down the road… So when he didn’t come home for a bit I was really starting to get worried. My emotions were heightened as I was something like 7 or 8 months pregnant. My phone rang, it was Jake… He had been pulled over one house away… The car was not registered and APPARENTLY he had a warrant for an unpaid ticket we didn’t know about… So he was sitting cuffed in the back of a squad car and wanted me to come get his belongings so they didn’t have to be taken… I had 2 sleeping girls in the house and my husband was being
arrested… My hormonal response was panic and stress… We barely had bail money and I needed to get someone to come sit with my sleeping girls so I could go pick Jake up from Jail when he was processed. They said about 4a I could pick him up in Spanish Fork… We lived 6 cities north of that… It was 1a.. MY parents were out of town… I called Jake’s in a panic and apologized for the hour… Told them what was going on, and asked if they could drive 3 cities north to me and sit with my girls so I could go get him… They offered to go get him instead and I told them I would venmo the bail money and they told me not to worry about it today and we could settle up later…
Jake was of course shocked to see his parents there to get him… He had no phone or contact with me since he told me his time slot for bail and pick up. He was a little mad that I got his parents involved but also understood I was limited on options and this one made the most sense. He was embarrassed and exhausted now home at 5a. We were able to pay his ticket off and it was done. But let me tell you, stress and uncertainty are not my friend. I love to plan, know details and plan for different scenarios… surprises and hormones make my anxiety shoot through the roof. Being in jail sort of spiraled him into drinking more frequently than he had been. He was stressed and bothered… All an alcoholic needs is an excuse or reason…. They can pull them out of thin air…. Jake was doing better but not sober. The fights were minimal and never blow up in your face or black out drunk bad. It was tolerable but triggering…. I was moody, I jumped the gun in conversations, was often unnecessarily harsh or judgmental… I started attending an Alanon meeting every week. Alanon is a group for the families of alcoholics. I would leave my girls with my friend Kellsey and I would go to these meetings every Wednesday. Those in attendance struggled with family members addicted to alcohol and an array of drugs. The stories were powerful and personal and the sense of unity shared and bonds created were healing.
Their stories are not mine to tell, but I wanted to share briefly just to share with those struggling with family wrapped in addictions, that I get it. I’ve seen it. I’ve lived it. I’ve seen it go bad, I’ve seen it end well. I am here for you if you have questions or if you want resources.
With that.. I learned a ton about setting boundaries, I was validated and heard, I was able to tell someone about what I was going through.. There were men and women…. Different stages… Our meeting was held at a rehab center, so once a month there would be a family day for the center where the addict and their family member would join the group.. We got to hear from addicts and others who shared similar fates or who had been through it with a good end or those who showed us it was okay if there wasn’t a good end. Some relationships aren’t fixable or worth the damage that occurs while fixing.. It was helpful to hear it all. But it only works if you participate, attend regularly and put in your own work. “Keep coming back, it works if you work it and YOU'RE worth it!” That was the motto we said at the end of every meeting. AND it’s true. I know it is the same for any support group… If you are open to the meeting in heart and mind, you WILL get what you need from it. Do the steps and the homework suggested, and you WILL make improvements in your life.. Be with others who understand what you are going through, you will be validated and called out on your BS. Which is healthy and important to your journey, You are not always right and they are not ALWAYS wrong.
What I learned, and probably the MOST important thing I learned is that I was not to blame. Which also meant I could not fix it. I had to decide what I would allow in MY life. I couldn’t decide what my qualifier needed to do or force him to fix his life… Sure he QUALIFIED me to be at this meeting (hence he is my qualifier), but I allowed myself to be treated like this continually and I put up with it… It was time for me to determine what I was willing to live with, take the tools I was taught to setup boundaries and put plans in place when those boundaries were crossed. You have the right to say no, to exclude toxic people and situations from your home or life, you have the right not to support or enable behaviors. But only YOU can make those determinations and put plans in place and into action when necessary. Why? Because Mama, YOU are SOOOO worth it! Together we will rise like the beautiful Phoenix’s we are and become our best selves. Until next week.
