Tags

, , , , , , , , , ,


As the wife and I (but mainly the wife) reach halftime of pregnancy #3, I thought an update might be in order.  20 weeks down, 20 more to go.  Based on results from the first two matchups, I don’t expect this to go to overtime.  There’s no doubt that Mommy showed up ready to play, but as the half wore on, she seemed to tire and even had to fight off a few bouts of nausea.  The plan is to hydrate feverishly here at halftime and throughout the second half in an attempt to negate the effects of the impending summer heat.  It’ll be a grueling final 20 weeks, requiring stamina and endurance that I (a two-time marathoner) simply do not have.  But my wife is strong.  She’s been here before.  So buckle up for an exciting second half!

(This extremely long basketball metaphor, which ran its course at least 45 words ago, was brought to you by “March Madness”, one of this sports fan’s favorite times of the year.)

Now back to reality.  Jen and I just had our 20 week ultrasound last Thursday and the baby is shaping up nicely.  10 fingers, 10 toes, and all those other important things that my wife (a NICU nurse) was relieved to find were all normal.  For those wondering the big question…no, we didn’t find out the sex of the baby.  With our first pregnancy, we elected to go the surprise route and I thoroughly enjoyed that moment when I burst through the waiting rooms door to declare to our families, “It’s a girl!”

The second time around, we gave in to our curiosity and chose to find that our little Jakester was on the way.  Now, with one of each, we’re going back to being surprised and so you, loyal reader, will just have to be patient like the rest of us.  For those willing to stick it out with us, I’ll be providing a little fun along the way in the form of a “baby pool”.  No, not the inflatable kind that my wife will likely spend most of the summer sitting in.  I’m talking about the gambling kind.  No money involved though, just a friendly guessing game in categories such as sex, date of delivery, time, length, weight, etc.  I’ll post details and a link to the pool once I’ve set it up, probably by my next post.

While waiting until the actual birth is both nostalgic and exciting, it also poses a bit of a problem for us.  Not knowing means we have to come up with a name for both a boy and a girl in order to be prepared for the little munchkin upon arrival.  Why is this a problem, you ask?  Because we can’t seem to agree on a girl’s name.  If, upon delivery, we are graced with the presence of a tiny twig and berries, we are good to go.  We’ve had a boy’s name picked out since Jake was born and no, I’m not going to tell you what it is.  You’ll just have to wait on that as well.

With no clear-cut favorite in the girl category however, we’ve taken to books and websites in the hopes of finding something that jumps off the page.  Believe me when I say we’ve found plenty that do that, just not for the reasons we hoped.  Here are some of the best (or worst) possibilities.

You named me what!!!

Abina: Considering the name means “She was born on a Thursday”, we’re pretty pigeon-holed with this one.

LinnÄ©a: I found this listed under “Unique Baby Names”.  No kidding.  I don’t even know how to pronounce it; it has a freakin’ copyright symbol in it!

America: Destined to be powerful, patriotic, bad with money, and likely unemployed.  Hmm…we’ll consider this one a “maybe”.

La-a: This is one of my favorites, mainly because the punctuation found within it finally gets its time to shine.  You’ve seen plenty of names with apostrophes, but rarely, if ever, are they pronounced.  This name however, pronounced “La-dash-a”, gives a proper shout-out to a often-used but rarely respected punctuation mark.

&: I just made this one up because based on some of the names I’ve seen, it’s perfectly acceptable to do so.  It will be written as the symbol “&”, but spoken as the word “Ampersand”.  Take that Grammar Police!

Female: Here’s an example of the disturbing trend of parents naming their children after everyday words, occurrences, or inanimate objects, but changing the pronunciation to justify it as a name.  In this case, the word female is pronounced “Feh-Mall-ee” and suddenly, instead of a basic noun, it’s a little girl on the swings at the playground.  Other examples of this trend include:

Grain: Pronounced “Gray-anne”
Tree: Pronounced “Tre'”
Adrenaline: Pronounced “A-Dra-Nee-Lynn” with emphasis on the 3rd syllable
 

N/A: Not Applicable? Really?  This was found on a list of rarely used baby names.  When I looked into what classified a name as “rarely used”, the website stated, “found on between 25 and 50 birth certificates in a given year.”  Ok, so that means that the name N/A was found on at least 25 birth certificates!  Found on the same list were:

Chevy: But not Ford, Saab, or Lexus.  Weird.
Cuba: Like the country
Wednesday: Like the day of the week
Alaska: Like the state
Virgin: Like the…wait, what?  Virgin?  C’mon folks!
 
Update: Freshly Pressed 3/29!!  Thanks to all who have commented.  Keep them coming, they’re great to read.  I will be responding very shortly to as many as I possibly can.  You guys are great and thanks for the feedback!
Advertisement