Meadow Ann Price

Meadow: symbolizes freshness and the beauty of a field in bloom

Ann: means grace

Price: means prize or reward

My Definition: “A sweet breath of fresh air; a gracious reward.”

I never had the name Meadow on any of my baby name lists. And I’ve had so many lists since I was about ten years old. But when we were pregnant with our second, Shiloh, we had a couple boy and girl names picked out, and Meadow was sorta in the running. I had seen it on a Pinterest post for whimsical nature names. I wasn’t too sure about it at first because it was so different, but I was intrigued by it nonetheless. After losing Shiloh, the image of our future family was hard for me to make out. I was worried we may never get pregnant again or that I would lose another baby, and I didn’t think I could handle that again. I was in a dark place for a while it seemed. Looking back, I now see that my grief had almost consumed my identity.

When I found out that I was pregnant with baby number three in the first week of January 2025, I was immediately overflowing with emotions. I was shocked when I saw the positive at only three weeks pregnant. I cried a lot, mostly tears of joy but also of fear. I was grateful for the chance to grow another life and hopefully get to meet them face to face nine months later.

When we found out it was a girl at ten weeks, I was in disbelief. I get to have a daughter! Not that I would have been disappointed in having another little boy to raise, but there’s something about a girl. I have an amazing friendship with my mom, and it’s a dream of mine to have a relationship like that with my own daughter one day. I couldn’t believe the Lord had blessed us so immensely. 

At this point, we had a girl name almost set in stone. Ben and I loved it and so did everyone we told. But it just didn’t feel like HER. Then one day, the name Meadow popped back into my head. The more I thought about it the more I fell in love with it. It was unexpected. Something about it just felt so refreshing. And then it hit me why.

This pregnancy. This baby. This little girl. A daughter. Getting to be pregnant with her felt like a breath of fresh air. The past nine months had been tough on me mentally and spiritually. I felt like I was still drowning in grief some days. But this baby girl, this gift that I was growing felt like a breath of fresh air. If I could have described it visually it literally felt like I was standing in a field of wildflowers breathing in the sweet warm air-like I was standing in a beautiful meadow. And that was that. I was now convinced this would be her name, and thankfully Ben was on board with it too. Eventually we started using the name when we’d talk about her and it just sounded right.

After finally settling on her middle names, both after two of my grandmas, I was curious to see what her name meant with all three put together, and the definition I came to had me in tears. “A sweet breath of fresh air-a gracious reward.” It is the kind of definition I can’t wait to share with her one day when she asks why we named her this.

By no means did I ever view this pregnancy as something we were owed after having lost one of our babies. In fact, I spent much of those nine months feeling like I wasn’t good enough, that I needed to be a better mom in order to deserve another child, as if having more children happened by any means other than the grace of God. Looking back I see His hand in it all. He answered one of my most vulnerable and desperate pleas in a psalm I wrote about six months after our miscarriage. It said “breathe life into me again and make my womb a blooming garden.” And every time I look into Meadow’s eyes or think about that definition of her name, I am in awe of God’s goodness to us. He breathed her life into existence and brought healing to my womb. She truly feels like a breath of fresh air and a gracious gift, greater than I ever could have dreamed.