NewYorke.org

Someone mentioned the desire to see pictures of April. We are currently vacationing in New Orleans and took this shot today. Her belly is definitely protruding. But then again, so is mine.

We searched and searched for our missing pictures. As it turns out, we'd left them on the doctor's desk. We had another appointment with him this morning where we were able to retrieve them. Here are three of our favorites.

Here is a great image of his whole face. You can even see his ear!

Yes, it looks like he's breaking his back, but rest assured it's just the angle of the image.

They swear to me this is a picture of a boy, but I remain unconvinced. Frankly it sounds made up.

I have now created a new section of my closet for clothes that no longer fit. Those clothes must be having quite a party over there. The section seems to be gaining new reecruits almost every day, sometimes 3 items in a single day. At first it was just pants. The shocker came last week, when suddenly, I had to try on three different shirts before one fit. Now, each time I walk in my closet, I find myself singing the tune, "Another one bites the dust." I think it's kinda funny. That little boy sure is growing.

My goodness. Apparently, I am starting to show enough that some people who know me, but aren't close can tell. Suddenly all these people have their hands on me. WIERD!!! It's not that I mind so much people touching me. I'm sorta a touchy- feely girl myself. It's people I only casually know suddenly reaching out to touch my abdomen with NO prior warning- kinda freaky. (It's not like it's by back or something.) If you are going to be touching semi-private regions of my body, ya really gotta give me a heads up.

One person came up and asked me if she could touch my belly with her hands down by her side. I consented and THEN she reached out to touch my belly. I am MUCH more comfortable with this arrangement. I appreciated the fact that she realized that it was MY body. I deserve the right to make the call on who's hands are on me and when.

ALSO- about that name "Killer". Just don't think it's gonna fly. Sorry Tim. I think it's funny, HOWEVER, I'd prefer it not to stick. I have NO desire to aspouse that characteristic to our son, even as a joke.

Just an FYI-
I am changing jobs next week. This school year ends Saturday. On Wed, I will be going to work for a brain injury rehab in Galveston next week. I am excited!

Ian Harvey may be his official name, but I think Tim won the nickname contest. I like Killer.

If the contest went a little too fast to keep up with...
Our little boy's name will be Ian Harvey. The Ian cause we like it, the Harvey after Dave's grandpa.

We're so excited we can't think straight.

Yeah, OK. Rachel won both :).

Rachel, who guessed the middle name, Harvey.

Don't get me wrong, we're excited to have a boy. We can't wait. Trouble is, after three years of marriage, the only name we've agreed upon is Ela (or Ella, or Elanora, depending on whom you ask). We figured the discussion on spelling was minor and could wait. That is probably the main reason we decided this baby was a little girl.

Alas, life is never so simple. We've been forced to confront the dreaded decision of naming a boy.

This common and oft-fought battle nearly always seems to start at the same point. Almost every man I've met loves the idea of having a Jr., named either after himself or one of his progenitors. As the fate of the universe would have it, an equal number of women abhor the idea. As much as they love their husbands, they don't love them that much, or at least not their names. I'm sure my wife thinks that one of me is quite enough to have running around the house, usually without certain amounts of clothing that she would deem to be minimal. As these things usually go, it is generally the husband's responsibility to protect the sanity of the home and drop the idea as promptly as conceived. I myself came to this conclusion at least two years ago.

With that issue out of the way, we had to face our next problem: most boys have terrible names. Who in his right mind would curse his first born with a name such as Rasputin? Or Ethan? For that matter, I never could understand why my own parents would name me after the most famous adulterer of all time.

As a couple, we've been compiling a list of the least humiliating and sickening names for quite some time. Of course, going back to the list revealed that of the 20 or so we found acceptable, only four would be suitable for a boy. Last night we agreed on one for this particular creature. This is, however, no guarantee that we will permanently stay in such a state of agreement. We had at one point, a year or two ago, been decided on our first boy's name, but someone (I'll not mention who; she knows who she is) renigged on the deal.

So, we'd like to invite you all to make a guess. Leave your try above. Be sure to fill in your name. There'll be a prize for the first one to get it right. I'll leave a clue from time to time. The clues and guesses are listed on the left. Here's Clue the First: the name contains two syllables.

We are so excited. Our superduper super exciting ultrasound revealed that our little one has a healthy heart, brain, spinal cord, arms, legs, stomach, bowels, hands, feet and everything else they looked at. They really do a great job these days. It's amazing how much you can see. Our doctor and/or technician spent almost 1.5 hours looking at each organ, organ system, etc. Of course, lets be real, there's a million things you can't see. But it's good to know that as much as we know about now, we've got a healthy little BOY!!!

A BOY. Woah! What a cognitive shift! We are thrilled. We can't wait to watch him playing with his feet. He'll be so cute! If he stays true to character, he will have his mom's energy level (well, childhood energy level). Every sonogram we have had, he has been quite active. I always liked active kids- way to go kiddo. I'm kinda proud of him for growing so many organs in such a short time. It's amazing how somehow Heavenly Father micromanages this whole process of growing a child's body- using my body, my physical resources, but I have absolutely no clue how it all occurs.

Well, we have printouts from the Sonogram. At least, we had them. We can't find them now. We may have left them downtown, we're not really sure. We also have a video tape of the whole thing. I'm going to see if I can extract a few still from that in the coming days.

Well, it seems the masses have masses on their brains. We were wrong. It's a boy. We're excited to know. Now the bartering for names can begin.

Hmmm. The tune from Little Orphan Annie is coming to mind… Tomorrow, Tomorrow, I love ya, Tomorrow, you're only a Day Away!

For the record- We'll be excited no matter what those "bits" tell us. Just as long as he/she doesn't play shy. Come on baby show us your stuff.

Well, let's hope not. Tomorrow we're getting our Super-Duper Hi-Res Hi-Tech Hi-Excitement 3-D Ultrasound taken. We'll get to see all the organs (hopefully human), including those that determine gender. I just hope the little runt isn't shy. It could be quite traumatizing, having pictures of one's bits published for all the world to see. At that point we'll take down the poll above, so now's your last chance to add your vote.

Studies have shown that the guesses of the masses are generally accurate. While it may be true that some of us are quite massive, I don't know that the eight people who've voted thus far can be termed "the masses". Having said that, I'm still optimistic that we've got a good chance (possibly as high as 50/50) of having a little girl. Whoëver it was that opted to vote for boy, you'd better watch out, we're coming for you.

Ok. So, I am "not showing" according to everyone else, but I haven't been able to fit into my pants for 2 weeks. I have to wear maternity pants, but then I have to roll the tops so I can wear them with several of my normal shirts.

I have, however, been able to eat for a couple of weeks here!!!! Hallaleujah!!!!! What a blessing to be able to eat. Starting to feel a lot better. Still tired, but definetly more able to function! Food- It's really a nice thing in life. Smoothies and I have regained our lifelong friendship. I missed them.

We find out the baby's gender in about a week. Yahoo!