18 Week Update

Hello blog friends! I am a blogger fail, and apologize to the people who have complained ::cough::Mom and TJ::cough:: about my lack of posting. It's fair to say that all is great in the McG household though. You know, no news is good news??? Yep, that's us.

So this week I believe I've started to feel Herme moving around. From the way s/he kicked around like a frog during the ultrasound Aunt Donna did I have a feeling that I'm going to be kept awake at night with movement. I'm feeling things every once in a while just below my belly button, barely to the right of the center of my tummy. It's pretty cool, and I can't wait until TJ can feel it from the outside too.

Since I last posted I had my regular 16 week check up and everything is good with baby. I did the quad screen (a blood test which tests for the heightened possibility of Down syndrome, Spina Bifida, etc.), and the results came back negative. So by blood tests, which obviously aren't 100%, I'm at a very low risk. Woo-hoo!! Annnnd, I scheduled the anatomy scan! At 7:00 next Friday the 7th (a week from today, EEEKKK!!) we will know if Herme is a He or a She!!!

You may have noticed a new poll to the right (-----> up top!), you have until mid-day next Friday to cast your votes and decide if you think Herme is a boy or a girl! A little background to help with your decision; I am positive it is a girl and TJ is positive it is a boy with mixed results from people we know. The heartbeat has been steadily around 160 beats a minute. I didn't have any morning sickness. All of the Chinese gender charts say it's a girl. The only thing I've really been craving consistently is cucumbers (yum!!). Good luck! :)

On the naming of the human front we have pretty much settled the score. If you remember we decided on our boy name pretty early on, but were struggling with what to name Herme if it turns out Herme is a girl. So, drum roll please, if we are having a girl her name will be (and we are 98% sure on this): Madeline Rey! We'll pronounce it Mad-a-lynn, and I'm still toying with the idea of an alternate spelling of the name so she isn't called Mad-a-line (but it's not a big deal). And again, if Herme is a boy his name will be Porter James. The middle names are my middle name (Rey) and TJ's middle name (James). Madeline isn't a name with family meaning, but Porter is TJ's dad's last name.

So, there you have it! An update! I hope you (momandtj) are happy now. ;) Don't forget to vote if you believe we're having a boy or a girl! And now, I leave you with some recent photos. The first two I took this morning before heading out to work, and the last was a few weeks ago at the Tulip Festival (with Aunt Alicia). As you might see by the last photo Herme is starting to get in the way when I bend over.

9 Weeks

I just realized that I skipped my 8 week post, and am about to skip my 9 week post also. Whoops. Annnnd, the battery in my camera is dead, so no pictures this week. I know you are all bummed that you miss out on my bloat baby! ;)

This week from The Bump we have a green olive:

Your little embryo has now officially graduated to fetus-hood. Adding to the excitement, a Doppler ultrasound device might be able to pick up the beating heart. With basic physical structures in place and increasingly distinct facial features, baby is kind of starting to look like...well...a baby!

So I am feeling Tony the Tiger Grrrrr-eat! Except for being tired at night, I still sack out at 7 o’clock on the couch. And the bloat. Ohhhh, the bloat! I had someone tell me last week I’m getting fat. Yes, pick your jaw up off the ground, that is what they said. Maybe not in so many words, but really, you shouldn’t tell a hormonal, pregnant, ragey woman that she needs to look into buying clothes soon. And you also shouldn’t give her the once over after you say such a rude thing. And, just so you know, rude person who I shouldn’t even care about anyway, I have LOST a pound since getting pregnant thank you very much! And you are a rude asshole. Ah, I feel so much better!

Back to the bloat! I will admit that even if the scale says I weigh less, my belly has this round little poochy thing that it didn’t have before. My mom and sister went shopping this weekend, they called me while TJ and I were out playing putt-putt golf on Sunday to say they were “Crazy Grandma/Auntie shopping.” My eyes lit up and I told TJ I was going to head over to mom’s house after golf and see what they bought. I scored! They bought me really cute maternity tops and two dresses (and some awesome baby loot, including a cute Elmo terry cloth robe with matching slippers. I almost died from the cuteness). Thanks to my friend bloat I am wearing one of my new maternity tops today, and it is sooooo comfy. My poor husband will never see me in a cute/tight/sexy top again. Hello muumuus and oversized shirts! Where have you been all my life?

We talked names a bit more this weekend. We are still trying to nail down a girl’s name in which we both agree upon. So far on our list of OK names we have: Lydia, Poppy, Allegra, Piper and Maggie. If it’s a girl we’ll probably use my middle name, Rey. We haven’t fallen in love with any of the names though, so I’m not sure we are quite “there” yet should Herme be a girl. Naming a person is super hard! Take my name for instance, I was never just “Jen/Jennifer”. Why? Because I was always Jen/Jenny/Jennifer C. My name was #1 the year I was born, and 25 –almost 26 –years later it is still in the top 100 baby names in the US. I don’t want my kid to have a totally outrageous name like Motorcycle (see previous name post and TJ’s bad sense of humor), but I also don’t want Herme to have the same name as half the other kids in his or her class. Don’t get me wrong though, I love my name and wouldn’t change it for the world, but I just don’t want to use something so popular.

I am 9 weeks and 1 day today, there are 216 days left to go (if this child should decide to arrive "on time").

He Has a Name. . .She Doesn't

I know it is very early on, but we have decided on what our boys name will be should we end up having a boy. We both have a feeling that we will have boys, so we have talked about girls names just briefly. We haven’t decided on a girl’s name though, and really with at 50/50 shot we need to come prepared for either option. I’m sure as the time goes on we will decide on a girl’s name, but for now our future son is named. So here is the story of how his name came to be. :)

TJ’s parents were very young when he was born, and on his birth certificate he was given his mom’s maiden name as his last name. He went by his dad’s last name in school, but it was never changed legally. Before we got married I told him that he needed to change his name if he was going to because I didn’t really plan on changing mine twice. He hemmed, and he hawed, and he hemmed some more. Our wedding day came, and he still hadn’t changed his name. In our first year of marriage we talked about it a little, but he settled on the fact that he would probably not change it.

Over the weekend we were talking about hypothetical names for our future baby(ies). TJ’s frist and middle name is Tyrone James, he was named after his dad. He has stated he didn’t want to use his name if we had a boy, so we had a clean slate in front of us. One of his favorite things to do is to suggest names which are so out there I cringe. He is never serious, but loves to get a reaction out of me. Some of my favorites have been: Panther, Motorcycle, and Lou Ferrigno (after we watched I Love You Man). Obviously we are not celebrities, and a name like Motorcycle wouldn’t really fly.

While we were discussing names I said it might be nice to use his dad’s last name as a first name. It was an instant hit, and I think he was a little miffed that he didn’t think of it himself. He was very excited about the idea, we talked it over a little and it was settled. Should we have a boy his name will Porter James. My TJ and my PJ. I can’t wait!