Baby names

Picking out a name for your baby is SO hard. When I was about 11 weeks, I decided it was far enough to buy some baby books. So I bought "Your Pregnancy Week by Week", which is so much fun to read with Kelly every week and learn how much our little one is changing and what to expect. And I bought something like "60,000 Baby Names" which is about 50,000 too many names, hahaha! Seriously, this book has the most random names in there...I swear they just pulled words out of a dictionary for some of these names. Salt. Bubbles. Nimrod. I'm not even kidding, its in there! Who names their child these things?? Who knows. Anyway...so for the past 6 weeks we have been going through this book, each throwing out names we like. Basically whichever names didn't get a "no" went on the list. Believe it or not we only had about 6 or 8 names per gender after all that. And none of them were really jumping out at us. I was beginning to think that "wigglie" would be called "wigglie" forever, haha! But the other night...we sat down and I told Kelly to pick out his favorites from the list. I figured that way we could at least start to narrow it down. He told me his picks and you know what? I loved them! One was a name that had been growing on me since he suggested it...and the other is a form of a name we'd been considering since long before I got pregnant. So, just like that, our baby has a name! Well...two potential names until he or she is born, I guess! And I am so in love with both of the names! So here they are internet.....
Riley Paul
Isabelle Margaret

Riley is just a name that Kelly picked and I wasn't sure at first, simply b/c a good friend of ours has a daughter named Riley...but ever since he suggested it, it has been growing on me. It is Irish, just like Kelly's name (and I am half Irish too, so I really like the idea of an Irish name)...it means "brave" which is similar to Kelly which means "warrior". Paul is both Kelly and his dad's middle name, so I definitely wanted to use that for the middle name regardless.

Isabel (we haven't decided for sure on the spelling yet) was Kelly's great grandmother's name. Margaret is my mom's name, my grandma's name, my other grandma's middle name, and my great aunt's (who I was really close to) middle name...so I really wanted to use it as well.

We had debated on telling people our names....I had always been afraid (before we picked them) of people's criticisms making me doubt our choices, and just sort of liked the idea of a surprise. But now that we have picked our names, I am SO excited about them that I just want to tell the world! And, I don't think I will care what people say, b/c I think they are perfect names, and I can't imagine our child being called anything else now. :)

First kick??

So I may have possibly felt a baby kick last night. I was lounging around watching Grey's Anatomy and felt this sort of thump, thump. It was over before I could realize what it might have been...so I tried to stay really still during the rest of the show just hoping I would feel it again and after I while I did! Another little thump, thump in the same place! I'm hoping I feel it again soon so I know for sure that its baby...but I think it was!! Yay!!

And to answer my (1) commenter's question (Hi Erin!! thanks for visiting!), nope, we're not going to find out what we're having. We, like you, want it to be a surprise :) I don't think the ILs are too thrilled that we're not finding out...MIL wants to be able to buy pink or blue, and FIL is analyzing the u/s pictures already to try to figure it out. I think it will be so amazing to find out on our baby's "birth" day though. And really, we don't care either way...we just know we are SO blessed to be having a baby, we'll take either one. Its hard to convince people of that though, everyone seems to assume we want one or the other. I don't even have a feeling one way or another. When I first got pg, I was sure it was a girl, but as time goes on I am more and more clueless, haha! When I picture the baby being here, sometime I will picture a boy, other times I will picture a girl...seems to be no rhyme or reason to it. Guess we'll see in April!

16 weeks!! And a new niece too!

So, 16 weeks already. So hard to believe! I am thrilled to be this far into my pregnancy :) We had a doctor's appt last Thursday, and everything is going great! Got to hear my sweet little baby's heartbeat on the doppler. What an amazing sound! Still keeping steady right at 160 bpm, we've got one consistent baby in there! I am feeling great now. I'd say once I hit about 14 weeks or so, the nauseau pretty much disappeared entirely. I still get tired now and then, but for the most part I have a lot more energy. Its funny how excited I got the first time I actually felt good enough to clean the house. :) I told work last week...and have told just about all of my friends at this point. Everyone is SO excited for us, especially those who knew about our loss, and I feel so very loved :) For us, I think we are both getting even more excited and this is becoming even more real. I actually had to buy maternity clothes last weekend! And wow, when I put those on, I actually have a little bump, so cool! Of course to people that don't know I'm pregnant, I'm sure it just looks like I've had a few too many doughnuts...hahaha :) Kelly is SO cute, every once in a while, he'll go, "hey you are starting to look pregnant" with this proud little look on his face, so sweet!

In other news...we have a new niece! Kelly's sister had her baby girl on Monday. We got to meet her yesterday and she is the tiniest sweetest little thing! She slept the whole time we were there, only opening her eyes once for me. She has her daddy's eyes for sure, and these adorable little chipmunk cheeks. She looks like she could store a week's worth of food in those little chubby cheeks, too cute! So I am now up to 5 nephews, 1 niece! Yay!

Slacker!

Yep, I'm a slacker. I never updated after our last u/s! But no worries, everything was perfect! We got to see our little one, (who is quite the wiggle worm by the way!) and it is amazing how much s/he has grown!! Kicking legs, waving arms, just amazing. Heartbeat of 162, and everything looking good. What a huge relief.

A few days after the u/s, I made my dreaded trip to Denver...and as far as I know, everything is still fine. YAY!!!! Nothing to make me think anything bad...and I've still had plenty of symptoms since I've gotten back, so I am going on the theory that all is well. The nausea seems to be lessening. About halfway between 10 and 11 weeks, I started to at least not feel nauseous every single day...I will have one or two good days...then a really really bad day. And I'm not quite as tired every day either...I still can fall asleep about 9:00 every night with no problem..but at least I am not feeling like I absolutely have to take a nap everyday after work. I have actually been cooking dinner! Kelly is thrilled about this new development...considering for weeks it was a sort of 'fend for yourself or I might be able to throw some quick convenience food in the oven...if you're lucky', haha!!

So being that we are now at 13 weeks. Yes, 13 weeks!! Can you believe it?! Which is pretty darn close to the official 2nd trimester (13 wks, 3 days)...we started telling people this past week. Everyone is very excited (of course)...and while its still pretty scary to me to be letting our secret out...its sort of fun too. Its strange though, we have been keeping it a secret for so long, that it almost seems more natural to us (or to me for sure) to not say anything than to actually make myself tell people. I got pretty comfortable having it just be our little secret. But I figured people are going to figure out in the next few weeks anyway...and at this point, if they find out later, they're going to really wonder why we didn't tell them (at least when we are talking about good friends/family, etc.). And while it makes perfect sense to me to wait as long as possible...it doesn't seem to make sense to other people. I've gotten a lot of, oh, it'll be fine. Yes...and you know this how exactly? Right...you don't. Realistically...I do hope that I don't have this much nervousness through my entire pregnancy. I really am enjoying and savoring every moment of being pregnant...and as each week passes, I get more and more confident and more and more excited about actually meeting my baby in April. Have I mentioned that I cannot WAIT until April??? :)

Next appointment...2 weeks from yesterday. Hoping for a doppler hearing of the heartbeat. Can't wait!!!!