Half Way there- and still nameless!

We're 20 weeks pregnant today, which means we've hit the half way point of the pregnancy. It also means that I could be holding our "Little Miss" in 20 weeks from now. (Wow! Time flies when you're not puking every day - all day!) lol

Thanks to all of you who have voted in our name poll. Unfortunately, we're no closer to having this little one named than we were before. Dad looked at the list and gave me "the look". (If you're married, you know the one I mean. lol)

The kids all have their opinions, too, of which name it should be. But still, nothing has just jumped out and said, "Yep, that's it!" Like it has for all the other kids (except Jeffrey who was named the night he was born about 3 am!)

Isn't it funny how much our impression of a name is based solely on others we know with that name? Someone suggested the name Charlotte with the nickname "Lotty". Well, I know a Lotty. She is the ex-wife of a friend and not someone I would want to name a child after. lol Name after name, my mind goes back to my school days and I associate the name with kids I knew. (sigh)

Jeffrey wants to name her Daisy (after a character in his Mario Bros. game). Abby wants to name her "Dora the Exploder" (which is what she thinks they are saying on Dora). lol Neither of those names are on the family list. ;)

My sister, Diana Lynne - thinks we should name her "Lynnie". (Ack!) Reminds me of Lennie and Squiggy on Laverne and Shirley! Several friends have suggested "Sophia" - and in my mind's eye, I see a short little outspoken, opinionated Italian lady on Golden Girls (which I love - but THAT's Sophia. lol)

My Mother likes Sarah, but prefers Kaitlin (which is also not on our list). And as my mother in law is named Margaret, and none of our girls are named after MY Mom, Margaret is not high on HER list. lol

I just love, love, love Arabella, because that was my great, great Aunt's name. She was the godliest woman who ever lived. She lived and died praising the Lord. I am so blessed to have recently gotten a copy of her diary from two years of her life. How incredible to get inside her thoughts and really get to know her (because she died when I was too little to know her). Those who did know her all have nothing but respect and love for her. AND, ironically, Arabella means "Prayerful" which is so fitting. And the nickname, "Bella" means "Beautiful". (Though we DO have a cow named Bella, so that's not going over so well - it's also the name my niece has given her Mini Cooper. lol)

I guess Arabella is one of those names that just has to grow on you. It has certainly grown on me, but not many people who hear it the first time go, "Ooh, that's pretty!" Most give me "that look". lol

I think Evangeline is pretty, and while the kids initially didn't like it, after we watched Nanny McPhee Saturday, they do like it better - but still don't want to name their sister that. lol

SO, for now, I'll just continue to give DH little talks about Arabella and see if it doesn't begin to grow on him, too. ;) And if not, maybe I'll be driving down the road one day and see a name on a sign that clicks... I'll keep ya posted.

But for now, this child shall remain "nameless". ;D

And the Girls have it!

The score is now 5-3, in favor of the girls.

Yes, this little one is a girl (considering that the sonogram pics of the "nether regions" showed nothing protruding lol). She had her little hand between her legs in this shot. See her little fingers? The large black circle is her bladder.

Praise God for a very active little wiggling healthy baby. What a joy to see that little heart beating at 152 beats per minute. She waved her little hand at us as if to say, "HI Mom and Dad! - Here I am!"

Of course, we had chosen 1 name for the baby - Andrew Steven. Obviously, that will no longer be appropriate.

So the Name Game continues. And the challenge as well.

We have given all of our daughters old fashioned, elegant names. They all have 3 or 4 syllables, but they have shortened forms of their names as nicknames. And the nicknames all end with a "long e" sound.

So the name at the top of my list is Sarah. Sarah is a nice, old fashioned, elegant name. There are several Sarahs in my family tree. In fact, it is the name of two of my great grandmothers.

BUT, as my other daughters pointed out - it's only 2 syllables and can not be shortened to anything that ends with a long e - Sar-E? Nope.

This leaves us with the dilemma - do we just go with Sarah and let her be different? Or do we keep looking?

I've asked friends and family, the girls in my Life Book Challenge at Heritage Scrap, and even my friends on Facebook. I've gotten suggestions for everything from Evangeline (which my niece continues to call my belly) to Esmerelda. Alexandra to Vivian. But NOTHING clicks. With my others, as soon as I heard the name, I knew that was "it". That hasn't happened. Yet.

I think I'll spend the day watching Jane Austin movies for inspiration. Or Lord of the Rings. Yes, Arwen Galadriel Pasterik. That sounds just about right.

NOT :D

The Saga continues until...Next Week

We used to be able to walk into out patient and have a sonogram, but apparently that's not the case anymore. Sooooo, I have an appointment for a sonogram next Wednesday. I'll be 18 weeks, so we should be able to tell quite a lot at that time (like whether the boy/girl score in our family will be evened or not. The score now stands at 4 girls and 3 boys).

Sometimes I wonder what God is thinking when he hears our family prayers. He has 3 girls and 1 little boy (who is in danger of losing his "baby son" status) praying fervently for the baby to be a girl. And there are two boys, praying equally as hard for a brother. He also has a little 2 year old princess praying for "both". lol

Of course we know that God knew this little one before it was even formed in the womb, so the gender question was determined long ago before the foundations of the world, but it is funny to hear them "letting their requests be made known".

I'm sure we'll be having the discussion about why God chose to answer the prayers of one group over the other in the coming days. Until then, we will just praise God for a healthy baby - whatever it may be...

161 Days...

That's how many days are left before this little one's due date. I'm 17 weeks pregnant today. I have a feeling that I have an anterior placenta which means that it's at the front of my belly instead of at my back. I had this with Miss Abigail, too, and it prevented me from feeling as much kicking and movement as I usually do.

We should be able to confirm this this week as we go in for a sonogram and get to see the little person who is being formed in that "secret place". (Psalm 139:15)

More to come...

I know, I know...I'm a slouch...

slouch (n) - a lazy, inept, or inefficient person.

So I made a New Year's Resolution to keep up with my blog and well, let's just say it hasn't gone so well. I had good intentions - REALLY!

As you can see from my last post, the year got off to an - interesting - start. And then it got even more interesting...

Let me first give you a little bit of background. After our seventh child was born, I got pregnant again, and had a miscarriage at 9 weeks on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, 2007. At the end of February, 2008, I conceived again, but again at 9 weeks, the spotting began. We went for a sonogram and were shocked to find that I had what is medically referred to as a "blighted ovum". When the egg is fertilized and begins to divide, it divides into 3 parts: 1 part becomes the placenta, 1 part becomes the sac, and 1 part becomes the baby. With a blighted ovum, the sac and placenta develop, but the baby doesn't. The sonogram showed an empty sac, while the placenta and sac had developed as in a normal pregnancy. I had all the pregnancy symptoms, because as far as my body knew, I was pregnant - but there was no baby.

We went to my niece's wedding in Connecticut, not knowing when the miscarriage would happen. It was inevitable once my body figured out that there was no baby. The spotting had already started, but we made the decision to go anyway. I won't go into the gory details, except to say that a public rest area, hours from home, is not the best place to have a miscarriage.

We were devastated, to say the least. For months, we cried out to God and sought healing for our pain and loss. And for months, we tried again to conceive - to no avail.

Eventually, we came to the realization that my womb was closed and that "7" truly was the number of completion for us. We finally were at peace with the idea that there would be no more children for us. I started gathering up baby clothes to sell or give away and we packed away the crib and high chair. I did some traveling (for the first time without a baby!) and started designing again - digital scrapbook kits. I haven't actually worked in graphic design since our third was a baby.

As I was "getting on with life" and busy homeschooling five kids, designing and just going day by day, a strange thing happened...I got pregnant!

For a couple weeks (at least), I was in shock! It was like going to someone's funeral, and then having them knock on your door a couple days later. I had mourned the loss of my "baby days", and here they were again. It was surreal!

But I was also skeptical. After four losses - two in a row - I wasn't sure this pregnancy wouldn't end the same way. I didn't want to accept the fact that I was pregnant, because that would mean acknowledging something I would have to give up. I didn't want to go through that pain and suffering again - of saying goodbye to my baby.

So for weeks, I tried to ignore it - but God has a way of grabbing us by the shoulders and shaking us. Let me just say that it is hard to ignore the fact that you are pregnant when you are throwing up constantly! I have NEVER been this sick with morning sickness - in 12 pregnancies! I've had nausea, but never have I been "sick" every day - all day. And the fatigue was incredible! When I wasn't barfing, I was sleeping.

I couldn't teach, I couldn't work, I couldn't cook (smelling meat cooking threw me into another barf binge!) All I could do was sleep - and be sick. And this went on until around the 13th week.

Week 9 was extremely difficult as I held my breath through the whole week, waiting for the spotting to start - it didn't.

Week 14 was also hard as my first miscarriage happened then - but the only thing that happened that week was an increase in the little kicks I had already started to feel.

I was 15 weeks on Monday. According to BabyCenter, here's what little #8 is looking like about now...

Hopefully, next week we'll have a sonogram and see what's going on in there.

All I can say is that God works in mysterious ways, his wonders to perform. And it ain't over - 'til it's over... At some point in my life, I might finally learn to accept the fact that I am not and never was in control.

The Bible says in Jeremiah 1:5, ""Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
before you were born I set you apart."

He knew that THIS baby was to be part of our lives at THIS time. He has a plan for this child's life and we are so excited to be a part of God's plan.

I will keep you posted as we go forward. Only about 25 weeks to go!

Oh, I forgot to mention that we are due on Dec. 7th - which is a day of gigantic proportions in this house. Our first child was due on Dec. 7th, 1993, and she came right on her due date, like a good little girl.

Our 3rd child was due on that day, but he took his time and came on Dec. 10th. (He's still the last to get up every morning and does everything in his own timing.)

Our 5th child wasn't due until Christmas Eve, but she decided that she wanted to be here in time to get her presents, so she was born on Tori's 9th birthday - Dec. 7th, 2002. (And yep, she's still very energetic and in a hurry to get wherever she wants to go!) So we shall see what happens this Dec. 7th.

In any case, 4 of our 8 children will have been due or born on December 7th. That's got to be some sort of record? :)

Stay tuned...

Bad Luck comes in 3s...

Back in high school, I broke my thumb playing volleyball. (Never cross your thumbs when hitting the ball!) No big. And I broke my middle toe on the hidden leg of my grandma's couch. (Don't buy a coach with a skirt that hides the legs.) And that was it. No broken arms or legs - nothing. I got through 40 years of life relatively break free.

Then... 2009 rolled around. The first week of January, I was carrying a box of old pictures and tripped over hubby's tool box, resulting in my little toe nail swiftly being removed, which I didn't notice right away due to the chunk that was also taken out of my toe. It still hurts, and I'm assuming it was broken. Break #1 of '09.

January 22, started out like any other day, until I started down the steps. My foot slipped on the 4th step, and I bounced down the next 8 steps on my tailbone. You never think about your coccyx until you break it. Break #2 of '09.

February 24, I stepped on a plastic bag someone had carelessly left on the kitchen floor, it slipped and I fell. In an attempt to catch myself, I put my hand out and took the brunt of the fall with my scaphoid bone. Hoping it was just a sprain I did nothing - until doing nothing was no longer an option. So I spent the morning at the doctor's office, then the x-ray department. The radiologist said the x-ray was negative. The doctor said scaphoid fractures don't usually show up right away. A medical website confirms this..."Often patients present with wrist pain following a fall and the x-ray does not immediately show damage to the scaphoid. Persistent pain and follow up x-rays can be required to correctly diagnose the condition" Another site agrees, saying, "If radiographs are negative despite clinical suspicion of a scaphoid fracture, the patient's wrist is immobilized and radiographs are repeated in 2 weeks. If plain films continue to be negative but clinical suspicion remains, further imaging should be pursued. Bone scan and computed tomography have been used with about equal accuracy to detect occult fractures."

So, we shall see. Considering my pocketbook is lighter to the tune of $300 ( which was a 40% discount off the original bill), I certainly hope I don't have to repeat it! In the meantime, I have a large chunk of plaster strapped to my arm, and my typing speed is no longer 120 wpm.

This morning, I asked God to assign any extra guardian angels to my case. I can use all the help I can get!

From Barbed Wire to the Rolling Stones

So my family took to making fun of my English dialect at lunch today - just because I said the word Winter without accentuating the "T". Sorry. Winter and Winner sound surprisingly similar to me. That led to the word Jaguar. Apparently, you're 'supposed' to pronounce it like Jag wahr or some such instead of Jag WIRE, like I say it. My 12 year old son said it's not Barbed Wire, but I contended that they actually are very similar, when you think about it. Barbed wire is pretty jagged. My husband had to agree and informed the kids that they always called thorns and brier bushes "jaggers" when he was a kid. Our 15 year old daughter said, "jaggers?" in that voice that only a 15 year old girl can produce. It's the magic teenaged girl voice and if you have or have ever had a teenaged daughter, you will know it. The one that is used to express, "That's stupid" regardless of what actual words are coming out of her mouth. ;) So apparently, she thought it was dumb to call briers "jaggers". That's when I chimed in, yeah, then there was Mick, but that's not a brier, it's a Rolling Stone - but he probably drives a Jag Wire. I think that's where we lost them. My husband and I got a chuckle out of it, while the children looked at each other, rolled their eyes and silently expressed their common belief that their parents had totally lost it. :D

Speaking of Common Beliefs, someone sent me a link to an article at NPR called "Thirty Things I Believe". Apparently they are posting several stories in the "This I Believe" category. This particular list was written by a seven year old boy. Smart kid! I have to say that I agree with just about all of them. (There's that one about everyone should get up early that I'm not so sure about. ;) ) It would be worthwhile, I think, if we all sat down and wrote 30 things we believe. Food for Thought. So #1 on my list is: I believe we should all take time to think about what we believe. ;)