Boy or Girl?

On the right hand side, I added a poll so you can vote on whether you think this baby is a boy or girl. We find out one week from today! BTW, I'm not tech-savvy enough to make "your title" go away, so I think it'll just have to stay.

If you want to base it on some old wives tales: I haven't really been sick at all, I don't really care for sweets (usually...sometimes I do want something sweet), no heartburn. Just ask if there's something else you need to know to make a prediction.

Baby Names

One of the most important things we get to do is name this baby...who will become a child, then an adolescent, then a teenager, then eventually an adult. It's not like picking out a stroller or crib bedding. Those things only affect the child for a little while. But a name is something they will keep for the rest of their lives (unless they hate it so much they change it). It's a big deal. It's something we've been putting a lot of thought into.

The name can't be only baby or little kid appropriate. This mostly applies to cutesy or trendy names. You know, the names of kids who have not yet grown up so their name still sounds like it belongs to a baby. For boys, I put most of the names that end in -aden or -ayden or some other variation of that in the category. They're not bad names at all; it's just hard for me to imagine adults with those names, even though it will inevitably happen.

The name can't be too wierd. I'm sure there are plenty of people in the world who give their kids some crazy strange names, but of course the people we only hear about doing so are celebrities. If you name your child Pilot Inspektor ( like actor Jason Lee) you have the potential to limit their career options. Although, I suppose if they're the child of a celebrity, jobs and making money may not be such a big deal. I don't think all wierd celebrity baby names are bad, though. Apple is kind of a cute name. That doesn't mean I'd ever name my child that.

The name can't be too popular. I experienced it first hand. I was one of many Jennifers. My name is the most common one for my age group. Nowadays, I think there is enough diversity among names that a strong concentration of one or two names doesn't really happen anymore. Unfortunately for us, the name we want to use as a boy name is extremely popular now. That wasn't the case a few years ago. The same goes with the name Mia. We've liked it for along time, but now it's like in the top ten baby names all of a sudden. It's not a bad thing. It just makes me think twice before naming my child that. By the way, we will not be naming our child Mia if we're having a girl.

If it's a boy name, it has to sound distinguished. At least my husband thinks so, and I agree with him. We've actually looked at a list of English kings to get baby name ideas. We don't want it to sound too pretentious, though. My husband actually has a good, strong, English king type name, but I'm not on board with the whole junior thing. If the baby is a boy, we're leaning toward giving him the same first name as my husband, though. The toughest thing has been picking out a middle name. Nothing sounds perfect yet.

I like the idea of literary names, as in names from books we love. The middle name we have picked out for a girl comes from my favorite book. For a boy middle name, we've discussed Holden (as in Caulfield from "Catcher in the Rye"). However, I didn't just love that book and the character is kind of strange and the whole associated with John Lennon's death thing turns me off to it. Lennon's killer had a copy of "Catcher in the Rye" on him when it happened. Now I know most people don't know that, but I do and I think it would bother me! Biblical names are good, and we've discussed some of those for boy middle names. Nothing has really stood out, though.

So all that to say, I think we do have a girl name picked out. However, I don't want to share it yet in case we change our mind or if we're having a boy. I think we have the first name of a boy picked out, but it could change. I keep thinking we'll come up with something better although it never happens. We do not have a middle name for a boy picked out and that has been THE hardest thing to decide on. So if you want to help, we're trying to come up with a middle name for William (he will go by Liam, which is the super popular name).

Almost 17 Weeks

I'll be 17 weeks pregnant in a couple of days. So far, so good. Of course, pregnancy has its quirks, but overall this hasn't been bad at all. Knock on wood. I've had a lot of years to think about what it would be like to be pregnant, and I always thought it would be...not so pleasant. As in I'd be sick all the time or I would worry all the time or there'd be something wrong with the baby. Stuff like that. I know there is still plenty of time for something to go wrong and bad things to happen, but I'm thankful so far that all has been well. It has far exceeded my expectations.

I can't say I was one of those people who had to experience being pregnant or their life would not be complete. In fact, I was totally ok with the idea of never being pregnant. I've always wanted to be a mother, though, so I'd figure we'd adopt...which we may still do one day. But since I've been blessed with this opportunity, I'm very thankful that I'm getting to experience it. Now I can't believe I was fine with missing out on this. I think the timing is quite interesting. It certainly changed, or delayed, our plans. Since I've been pregnant, the main Bible verse I think of is Proverbs 19:21: "Many are the plans in a man's heart, but it is the Lord's purpose that prevails." Even though life is kind of crazy at the moment (mostly because I don't have a job...still), I know it will all work out in the end. I'm hoping someone wants to hire me soon. I was hoping to land something before I was showing, but that's not going to happen now. My belly popped last week. So while this whole baby thing is the most significant thing I've done with my life, I'm feeling discouragement like I've never felt before. Unfortunately, I think being pregnant will work against me now, even though it shouldn't. If I can't get a regular job, hopefully I can string together enough temp work until I have the baby. I would've never thought it would take me more than three months to find a job. This is one time when I wish God would let me know the plan. I would probably feel much better then.

HOWEVER, I'm thankful I have a husband with a full time job and that I"m working at least half of the month of December at a temp job, even though it means getting up at 5:00 in the morning. I"m thankful that this pregnancy has been so easy so far and has not kept me from doing anything or prevented me from working. This baby knows what's up. He/she totally helped me out with not showing for as long as he/she could so there's no hard feelings that now he/she needs more space. (I'll be so happy after December 28 when I can just type he OR she.) I like my belly. I admire it every time I look in a mirror. It's not that big yet, but it's a baby bump for sure. It literally happened overnight. I woke up one day and my pants (that were already 2 sizes bigger than what I was wearing) didn't fit. Crazy. Maternity pants are awesome, though.

Baby Bedding

I'm not sure if our child will have his or her own room, but they will definitely have their own bed. Besides a travel system, bedding was something I wanted to pick out before I knew the gender. I knew I wouldn't pick pink bedding if the baby's a girl, or blue bedding with sports/animal themes if the baby's a boy. I like simple patterns, nothing too busy on the eyes. So I set out online to find that. I'm not sure how many sites I perused, but it was more than a few. Of course, I found some really beautiful, awesome crib sets. I just don't think my baby needs $300 (and sometimes more) bedding. Leave it to me to like the expensive stuff the best. As for the sets in my price range, I didn't find anything I just loved. But I wasn't too discouraged. I still had some time.

Next, I turned to Etsy. Surely there would be people on there making crib bedding out of awesome fabrics...and there was. Plenty, in fact. There is some gorgeous baby bedding on Etsy. But, it's completely out of my price range due to the homemade aspect and the quality of fabrics being used. It's more than the manufactured sets...as it really should be. I'm sure it's worth it. My baby just won't be sleeping on any of it.

Then my friend Kelli, who is amazing at sewing, offered to make the crib bedding! Problem solved. I guess I will be getting some custom bedding after all. On Black Friday, we went to a few fabric stores in Shreveport to hopefully find something I liked. I really like brown, turquoise and lime together, and I figured that would work for a girl or a boy. At least I think it does. I like it and I'm a girl! We went to Jo Ann's first because I had a coupon. We didn't find anything there for bedding, but we did find a great, soft flannel that's brown with light and dark turquoise, lime, and white polka dots. We bought a couple of yards, and Kelli is going to make swaddling blankets out if it. The only bummer is that it was barely put on sale which meant I couldn't use the 50% off coupon. Shady Jo Ann's...shady.

Next, we went to Hobby Lobby. There, we found some fabric that is dark brown with small turquoise polka dots. I decided it would be the perfect fabric for the crib bumper. We then found a solid turquoise fabric that is the exact same color as the polka dots on the first fabric, at least to our eyes. That's what the bed skirt will be made out of, and it will be trimmed in the crib bumper fabric. You know, to tie it all together. So that left the quilt fabric. It will be a patchwork quilt incorporating all the different colors. It will have squares of the brown polka dot fabric, turquoise fabric, as well as light turquoise fabric and white fabric we found at Hancock's. It will be backed with white minky fabric. That way it will be super soft on one side. So the bedding doesn't have any lime in it. It ended up being brown with turquoise polka dots, dark turquoise, light turquoise, and white. That way, I can just get white sheets and call it a day. I think  it's going to be so cute! I can't wait to see it all finished one day. Thankfully, Will liked the colors and approved of the choices. Right now, I just have some fabric scraps to help me envision it.

It's kind of a dark picture. Crib bedding fabric on top, swaddling blanket fabric on the bottom.

An Update on Our Baby

I had my second baby appointment today. It's hard to believe it's been a month since the first one. The appointment was very quick and laid back. Blood pressure is great, I only gained two pounds in the last month, and I'm in great health (the sinus infection is on the way out). I got to hear the baby's heartbeat. It was strong and healthy and 155 bpm. The doctor said it was perfect. Yay! Even if everything feels fine, I still have random thoughts like, "What of the baby has stopped growing?" and stuff like that. So now I have proof the baby has not stopped growing.

On my way into the doctor's office, I was called about starting a temp office job this afternoon. We need the money for sure, so I accepted. I start in about an hour and a half.

The next appointment will be December 28th, and we'll find out if we're having a boy or girl. So I will not know before Christmas.

Today...

begins the second trimester!

Babies

Not babies in general, but the documentary, "Babies." We streamed it on Netflix about 2 weeks after we found out I was pregnant. It follows 4 families from different places in the world raising their child from birth to about one year old. The families in Tokyo, Japan and San Francisco are raising their first child. The families in Namibia and Mongolia already have one or more children. There isn't much talking in the film, so you don't have to read subtitles the whole time. The pictures tell the story. I thought it was so interesting. The SF and Tokyo families seemed very similar to each other and what all of us would think of as pretty normal as far as baby-raising goes. They had the means to give their child anything she wanted (both are girls). They went to playgroups and outings with other families. They have dedicated play rooms full of toys and books and whatever else. Yet, I couldn't help but think that I don't want my child to have that much stuff. You could tell that the children were somewhat spoiled, and out of the 4 babies, these two were the ones most likely to throw a temper tantrum over not getting their way.

Of course, the Mongolian and Namibian babies are on the opposite end of the "having stuff" spectrum. In America, we have no concept of raising our children like these families are doing. The Namibian child (a girl) sits in the dirt most days, but she plays with her siblings or cousins, and there are a few things to play with. The baby doesn't seem angry about having to sit in the dirt all day because that's all she knows and everyone else is doing it too. I'm pretty sure she gets breastfed by at least one other woman who is not her mother, which probably seems strange to us, but you could tell it is more like a community raising a child rather than just one or two people. The Mongolian family lives on the plains and is farming and/or tending to animals all the time. You get the impression from the film that the baby is left inside alone a lot of the time. I'm not sure if that's really how it is, but I'm sure at least one of the parents could not be inside watching a baby all day when there's so much that has to be done outside. So they bundle up the baby (a boy), and place him on a bed surrounded by blankets and such so that he cannot fall off the bed, and there they leave him. At one point, a rooster jumps on the bed beside him, but he doesn't even flinch. Once the child is older, they tether him to a bed post, so he can crawl on the floor some. That seems like something folks would go to jail for in America. But that's how it is in their culture. The baby has an older brother who terrorizes him, which I'm sure parents of two boys can sympathize with. Once the child starts venturing outside, it's interesting to see how he interacts with the animals. It's so different from here, but he's not having any less of a childhood than kids here are having.

All in all, it was a joy to watch this film. One thing I noticed about all the babies is that at some point  they all say, "Mama." I thought that was so cool how that word is used all over the world. It lets you know that even though they're being raised in such different circumstances, they still have something in common. Very cool. I'd say it's a must see, regardless of whether or not you're pregnant or already have kids.

Babies