My Intro/Birth/Naming Story

Hello, My name is Sylvia Tegan (first and middle name). I am 29 (Wow! It's strange for me to say that as in my head I still feel like I'm in my early 20s). I grew up in the green, rolling Ozark hills, far from city life.

I now live in the quiet suburbs of Kansas City with my partner of 9 years, Michael, our 18 month old little girl Kaia, my transgender son Jaxx, our 3 dogs, and one cat. I am both nervous and excited to begin writing and opening up more about the stories of my life (both past and present). As this is my first post, I'll introduce myself by telling you my birth and naming story (as was told to me by my parents). At a later date I will share my daughter Kaia's birth story.

It was late January, 1988, when my mother started feeling contractions. She had planned on having me at home, with a midwife. Something wasn't quite right. She got in the bathtub to relax. My father called the midwife. She said get her out of the tub and to the hospital, quickly. On the hurried late night drive down curvy Ozarks road to the nearest hospital (45 minutes away), my father hit a deer. They stopped long enough to see that it was a female deer, that the car was drivable, and headed on to the hospital. The deer was left in the ditch.

I was born by cesarean not long after they arrived. My father remembers "wearing a hole in the floor" from all his pacing. He also remembers that the doctor accidentally made a tiny cut on my forehead in the process of getting me out. I was a healthy baby who now needed a name. My mother says my father didn't agree to any girls names before I was born because he was sure I'd be a boy. The hospital pressured them to name me before they left. As they were flipping through baby name books they found the name "Tegan" which means "doe" (a deer, a female deer) in the Celtic language. :) They decided to name me after the deer they hit on the way to the hospital.

My mother liked the name Sylvia, from the Latin word "Sylvan" (of the forest) for my first name. She says she knew a Sylvia once, a beautiful, magical woman. So, they named me Sylvia Tegan (Doe of the Forest). If you guessed that my parents where old hippies you'd be correct. ;)

When they looked for the deer by the side of the road on their way home it was nowhere to be found. After we got home from the hospital, my mother tried to call me by first name for a few days. My dad preferred the name Tegan to Sylvia, and said I just seemed like a Tegan (pronounced like Megan, but with a T). So, the name Tegan stuck. And that is how I got my name. <3 Thanks for reading! Photo of the white-tail deer is by my sweet photographer friend Gail Rowley (posted with permission, of course).