Havin' a Gavin

Well, it's officially been two whole weeks and we haven't changed our minds yet, so it looks like JJ is going to be "Gavin". It's probably the only name that managed to get on both of our "top" lists for any amount of time, and we haven't been able to come up with any inappropriate "Pee" jokes to defile it.

I don't know why it was so incredibly hard for us to choose a boy name. Back in 2007 when we were trying to come up with a girl name, we had a boy name all picked out ("Xander") and thought finding a girl name was impossible. This time around, I guess because we actually had the responsibility of choosing the boy name, nothing seemed to stick! Of course, there's always the possibility that no matter what we name him on his birth certificate, I may just end up calling him "JJ" anyways. :)

Apparently I like names that belong to kids growing up in the Upper East side of Manhattan: Cooper, Carter, Eamon ... I just can't help myself. And then James seems to prefer names that belong in the NBA or NFL; hard to find much compromise here.

Some of our funnier name stories:

• Name story #1: I originally thought the name "Ian" would be perfect because I thought it was the Celtic version of James. Ian Pee! Well, I do some quick Googling and find that Ian is the Celtic version of John and that the Celtic version of James is ... wait for it ... Seamus. SEAMUS PEE?! No way. Even after I found out it was pronounced SHAY-mus, it still doesn't fly for me even though James thought it was hilarious. You can thank me later, my son. :)
  
• Name story #2: Another idea was to try to find names of famous James' (or Jimmies). I liked Carter but then the thought of having a Claire and a Carter, both perfectly fine retail stores but odd to name your children after them, was a little too much. Somehow we stumbled on Hendrix of Jimi Hendrix. Hendrix / Hendricks! After giving it more thought, it didn't stick. Would we be naming Hendrick after the motorsports company -- go Jimmie Johnson! -- or after the gin? It was just too much.
  
• Name story #3: We even thought about going "out there" with names, and James got hooked on Orion. I was okay with Orson and would even consider Apollo (if Ono can do it, maybe we could, too), but I just couldn't buy into Orion which was a perfect reason for James to get stuck on it and torment me which gave me even more reason to stick to Quinn (which I still love) but James would not OK because it reminds him of Dr. Quinn, medicine woman, too much.

The actual name "Gavin" is a Welsh name that means "white hawk of battle". Well, those Hunan people were quite the warriors, so I guess that works. Plus, it's a variant of Gawain, one of King Arthur's knights of the Round Table, which definitely works for me. Claire's middle name (De-Ling) means "a wing to fly"; odd considering how I'm not exactly a bird person, huh?

No promises that we'll actually leave the hospital with a "Gavin" and not an Ian, Quinn, or Orion, so no personalization, embroidery, or announcements yet, but at least this should appease you people who have been dying to know!

Baby Pee - 34-Week Appointment

Back at my 30-Week appointment, I made a note about how it seems like appointments seem to run late more in the afternoon than in the mornings, so of course there was an emergency this morning to where both OBs from my office were stuck in surgery well past their 7:30am scheduled C-section times. Come 9:30, they still weren't back at the offices which left them a whole lot of impatient patients in their exam and waiting rooms. I was fine though; nothing to get my heart rate up over. :)

The appointment was fine. After assuring the doctor that waiting is not that big a deal for me -- it's nice to know that she gives you the proper amount of attention; I feel good knowing that she would do the same for me in the same situation! -- she let me know that the baby's heart rate is good and that I gained three pounds in the last two weeks. Whoops. And that was with my haircut and everything!

I think the only question I had for her is whether I should be doing anything to try and get JJ to move down (he's sitting somewhere around my lungs/neck right now; a perfect shelf for that bowl of ice cream!). She said no, it's still too early, then added "but there's not really anything you need to do anyways; he'll move down when he's ready to move down". Well, I'M ready for him to move down, so I hope he gets on board soon. Although, I have appreciated that the trade-off that I've been able to hold onto my bladder throughout the pregnancy even if I haven't been able to breathe.

Next appointment is in two weeks, at which time Dr. Jaffee will start checking my cervix (softening? widening? whatever) and I'll start going to see her every week. It's absolutely incredible how quickly this pregnancy has gone!

Tamales & Baby Sprinkle

Made tamales for the first time today at Michelle's with Kim and Heather. It was quite fun! A lot like making egg rolls, you first make the inside ingredients and then sit down to roll everything up. I managed to make a bunch of "finger tamales" (think the size of your pinky) because it seemed like such a shame to just toss those corn husk sections when they were still perfectly usable even if they were teeny, tiny. I'll call them "Claire-sized" tamales. :) The only downside of creating tamales is it's not really a "one to make, one to eat" type of activity like making cookies where you end up with about 1/2 the cookies since the other 1/2 of the batter gets eaten throughout!

Me and Kim

Heather and Michelle

Hard at work

My playgroup hosted a baby sprinkle -- that is, a light shower -- for Baby Pee today. It was hosted by Flo, Cathy G, and Cathy B, and I am so grateful and honored that they would do something like that for me, especially with everything else going on in their lives right now. I started the whole "sprinkle" thing within the playgroup when the first moms got pregnant (I think it was Maya first, then Cathy) never thinking that I would be in the same position just a few months later!

Troublemakers

Here's Baby Sprinkle pics that Cathy took (thank goodness someone did!). I only managed to get a couple; you can see more in our November album.

Locks of Beautiful Lengths

Cut my hair, finally. Back in March (yes, March), I had planned to do my normal trim, but my hair appointment was canceled because of a work thing. Same thing happened in May, and by the time July rolled around and I had to cancel my appointment for the THIRD time, I decided that it was a sign that I should take advantage of "pregnancy hair" and grow it out to donate.

Before

After

I ended up cutting off a 12" braid and plan to donate it either to Locks of Love or Pantene Beautiful Lengths. I knew that if I didn't make time to do this now, I would probably end up not doing it for awhile. I was actually quite impressed by how much was cut off as well as how healthy my hair was. Seriously, ladies, pregnancy hair is awesome.

Funny thing is, my hair now is probably closer to the "old" me -- pre-pregnancies? -- before I started skipping hair appointments to hang out with my baby girl. James seems to like it; probably reminds him of the days when we were young and carefree. :)

Now I'm trying to decide whether to donate the thing to Locks of Love or to Pantene Beautiful Lengths. Both are very honorable organizations that help deserving recipients. Either way, I need to get this thing out of my house soon or else I fear it'll be laying around forever!

UPDATE 11/24 - Decided to go with Locks of Love. My reasoning is because Locks of Love requires a minimum of 10", and with my 12" braid, I have more than enough. Pantene Beautiful Lengths only requires 8", so I figure I can easily donate to them in the future. And, I mailed it off, so that thing is out of my hair (pun intended!)

My Friend Charley

What could be more unpleasant than waking up to a pager (I'm on call this week) at 5:48am? Perhaps already being up when the pager went off because you're still coming off the rolling aches in your legs from getting a crazy charley horse in the middle of the night! And, I swear, this sucker was in a part of my leg that there is no muscle ... up and down the outside of the lower leg between the calf and shin?

I don't know if every woman gets them when they're pregnant, but I remember getting them with Claire. Back then, I would leap out of bed, flail around like crazy, stomp my legs, crack up laughing at the absurdity of it all, and walk it off. Couldn't exactly do the same thing this morning when I found myself struck while sleeping in Claire's bed (I fell asleep there at 9:30 last night while putting her to sleep; 3rd trimester narcolepsy) ... while trapped on the side closest to the wall ... with Claire somehow wormed to the end of the bed blocking the exit. Trapped in my own pretty, pretty pink pillow hell! I did manage, however, to leap up in bed -- surprisingly agile for a pregnant lady -- and stand up hugging the wall, shouting in silence.

After the 4th one subsided (because they come in waves), I managed to wiggle my way off the bed, reposition Claire in the bed, and headed off to my own bed where I stared at the windows (pregnancy forces side sleeping so no staring at the ceiling) for the next 45 minutes until the BRRRRRNNNNNNNGGGGG, BRRRRRNNNNNGGG of the pager jerked me awake just as I was drifting off.

As I was working the ticket, Claire woke up asking for Mommy. I figure this was a good trial run of what it will be like when we have 2. Drift off to sleep and the other wakes up; working one issue when another rises. Should be interesting.

Good news is, I was able to fix the ticket! I did call in moral support to talk me off the ledge, but I did figure out the solution myself. Yay! Off to ... well, I probably won't be going back to bed, but off to my next adventure.

Baby Pee - 32-Week Appointment

Low-key appointment today. I managed to gain another 2 pounds in 2 weeks, but who's counting (oh, that's right, *I* am). The doctor and nurse both said it's fine; a pound a week here at the end is no problem even if I'm not happy about it. I measured at 33 weeks (just a tad bigger than the 32 weeks that I'm at gestationally) but it was well within the expected measurements plus part of that can be due to what direction JJ is turned right now.

JJ moved around during the appointment trying to evade the mic, but we finally held him still long enough to listen to his heart which sounds great. Judging from where she was able to get his heartbeat, the guess is that he's head down still, but we'll know for sure in a few weeks when she starts checking my cervix during my appointments. I noticed yesterday that whenever JJ gets really active kicking, his kicks seem to directly impact another one of my organs now. Stretches up, I need to pee immediately; kicks to the left, my stomach rumbles and I get nauseated; punches to the right, and my back hurts. I wonder if actual bruising occurs in my insides?

I also got my H1N1 shot today. Our office offered it, but I wanted to make sure I got the good stuff. While I was at the office, I heard quite a few calls come in with folks asking for the vaccine availability, and they turned away a lot of people with the explanation that they're saving their handful of mercury-free shots for the pregnant ladies in their third trimester.

That's about it, really. Claire's big girl room is all done, and she loves her bed (the epitome of what "pink" looks like if it exploded) ... and has been sleeping in the bed all by herself! I'm there for when she goes down, but then she sleeps by herself at night. Yay! I'll post pictures of it soon. The nursery, on the other hand, is NOT done. And we have no name yet. Sigh.