a pregnant list

fyi: if you read this entire monster, then I'll know you really love me. or are really bored. in which case, I know how you feel. because I just wrote this.

1. Yes, I am indeed pregnant. Sorry, I guess that last post was a little confusing for a few people. ;) I'm due Oct. 13th. It'll be a few more weeks before we find out the gender, but the Chinese calendar says it's a girl (yikes).

2. I don't usually get "morning sickness" when I'm pregnant. I've never thrown up due to pregnancy (twice due to the flu while pregnant, and once on a plane during the landing while pregnant... yes, it was embarrassing, but I felt great afterwards). I don't know if I had a flu at the beginning of this one, or if it was baby induced, but I was SICK. So sick that when one of my friends called and asked if she could bring us dinner, I burst into sloppy, sobbing tears (sorry Heather. And thank you!). I was pretty pathetic. Still no throwing up, but lots of sitting in front of the toilet hoping to throw up. And lots and LOTS of child ignoring.

3. The worst side effect to my pregnancies is the inability to sleep. Seriously, it's killing me. And it's not because I'm uncomfortable or sick or because I've napped all day.... I have simply lost the ability to sleep. Here's a breakdown of a typical night's sleep:
-Go pee at least twice while getting ready for bed. Get in bed between 10:30 and 11:30.
-Zach falls asleep immeadiately. I lay awake for at least a half an hour, get up to pee (again), and then go to sleep.
-If no boys wake up crying, I MIGHT sleep till maybe 2 or 3 (but usually, they wake up crying for something..... don't get me started on that one....).
-Then I lay awake. Probably get up and pee. Get something to eat. Lay awake some more.
-Want to cry when Zach's alarm goes off at 5:30 and I realize I've been awake for hours. Get up and pee, and try to go back to sleep.
-Fall asleep around the time that Zach leaves for work, maybe before. That's at about 7.
-Wake up when the boys start making noises - usually between 8:30 and 9 (and yes, THANK GOODNESS they've been late sleepers lately).
-Spend the rest of the day feeling like a zombie and apologizing to my children for not being a very fun mom.

4. I've tried taking half a Unisom before bed to help me sleep, but it doesn't really help much. It makes it easier to fall back to sleep in the night, but it makes it REALLY hard to wake up in the morning. Maybe if I went to bed at 8. But that's just not going to happen. Actually, after last night, I could probably be in bed by 8 tonight. I feel like my brain has been replaced by a fishbowl.

5. Names. I LOVE thinking about baby names. And for this one I have some serious specifications. Here's the deal - In our little family of four we've used every letter of the alphabet in our names except for B, D, P, and V. Crazy, right? So I think it would be fun to use those (and I think we'll have at least one more kid after this one, so we don't have to use all four letters on this baby). Also, Quinn and Max both have songs that go with their names. Here's Quinn's (It was written by Bob Dylan, but his version doesn't seem to be on youtube. boo.). And here's Max's. And yes, it's also where we got our dog's name from (Edison). According to my brother Christian, Quinn The Eskimo is referring to a cocaine dealer. And Maxwell... well it's pretty clear from the song. He liked to kill people with hammers. So you can see that we don't really care what the song is about... We have a list of names that meet all the requirements, but we're still taking suggestions. And we'll most likely have to meet the little nugget before we settle on a name.

6. When I was pregnant with Max we had narrowed it down to three names that we loved: Jude, Julian and Oliver. The moment he was born I knew that none of those names were HIS name. After a day of tossing around names I said, "I kinda like Max??" And Zach said, "Huh, that's kind of cool. How about Maxwell?" (Zach loves Neal A. Maxwell. When Max was born he was posterior, AKA: face-up. Once he came out our midwife said, "Ah, a star gazer!" which I thought was so sweet (even though it hurt like....). Zach thought it was fitting to name our little star gazer after one who "looks to the Heavens". That man, he's got such a way with words....). Anyways, Max seemed to fit right away. This is one of my favorite pictures from the hospital:



7. We picked the name Quinn pretty early before he was born. Zach's little brother had a friend named Quinn and we just thought it sounded cool. But I had a hard time going through the whole pregnancy KNOWING his name would be Quinn. I thought that took some of the fun out of the name. And I even had another name that I seriously considered right up to the point where I was filling out his birth certificate. I kept saying, "But Zach, what if Quinn isn't his name??" And Zach said, "Trust me Katie, it's his name." And thank goodness Zach stuck to his guns. The other name was "Jonas". Talk about a dodged bullet.

8. Still, I love the name Jonas. And this is a good enough reason. Dangit, I love it. And if it weren't for Brangelina, I would probably seriously consider the name Shiloh. I think Zach has ruled out the name Lady. I don't really blame him. But seriously, it could be cute. I'm not going to give away the names we're serious about. I like the surprise.

9. We like to pick out a "womb name" to refer to the baby before it's born. We called Quinn "Boots" before he was born, and both of our families tried to convince us to name him Boots. Throughout the whole pregnancy we could hardly imagine calling him anything else. Luckily, once he was born it didn't even cross our minds. It's not even one of his nicknames. Max's womb name was "Kubbie" and was picked out by one of Zach's seminary students. He handed out little pieces of paper to all of his students and asked them to write down a boy womb name and a girl womb name. There were some hilarious suggestions, but we liked Kubbie the best. And it stuck a little bit longer than Boots did. We used it as a nickname for a little while after he was born but it eventually faded away.

10. We've been asking Quinn what he thinks we should name the baby (which he insists is a girl). He didn't say anything for a long time. Just vetoed any names we suggested. But the other day he told me that we should name the baby "Harriett". And he's not budging. Max is even in on it and they both refer to my belly as Harriett. Baby Harriett. What do you think? Know any Harriett songs? ;)