The Name Game

One of the more fun activities we've enjoyed as a newly pregnant couple (well, truly we've been playing this game for years, even before we decided to have kids) is tossing around various name possibilities. Fortunately, we have lots of fun heritages to choose from--German, Chinese, and East Texan. And, David's affinity to all things Latin American has thrust many Latino names to the top of the list.

So, on our way home from sharing the news with David's family, we returned to this fun game. Shockingly, we sort of settled on a boy name and a girl name and couldn't come up with a name that we both liked better. As I'm sure is the case with many couples, we find that we have different tastes in names as well, so the list of names we both really like is quite short. But, one thing we do agree on is that we want a name that isn't particularly popular, so that our kid won't share the same name with 3 other kids in the class. The two we came up with, Diego and Sofia.

Well, not so fast. I was a little nervous that Diego of Dora fame may have popularized that name too much. So, David checked the social security administration website and discovered that Diego was the 58th most popular name in 2007 and has been rising dramatically in the past 15 years. Even more shocking to me was that Sofia is the #35 name on the list. More problematic is that Sophia is #6 and Sophie is #82. As David put it, we're just a couple of lemmings...

Do you FEEL pregnant?

The short answer is no. Some women have told me that they just knew that they were pregnant. I, on the other hand, had completely convinced myself that I had skipped my cycle just 2 days before we got the "+" sign. But, now that I have the confirmation, funny things have been happening... Of course we started reading the required "What to Expect When You're Expecting" book. Expect to read this book if you're expecting. In it, we learned that I should have feelings of fatigue. Why, yes, I was really tired the other day! Oh, we only slept 4 hours the night before?... And, I did feel nauseous (the most difficult word to spell in the English language) that morning I went walking with Sarah. But, I did take a vitamin on a relatively empty stomach and it was 95 degrees outside... The gym has also made me queasy from time to time lately. I've always blamed it on the new rubber mats they put down (and even complained to the staff about it)... Maybe all these symptoms of pregnancy can be explained away. Maybe they're compounded by my new "status". I have taken my newfound pregnant-ness to mean that I can sleep in, be lazy, and eat whatever I want. I have to fight the fatigue and nausea somehow, right? Maybe the next edition of this book should tell moms-to-be that they should be feeling optimism, hope, tolerance, and patience. I bet women would start noticing those feelings in their lives. Maybe even experience them more. The mind is a powerful thing.

positive? positive.

I learned this morning how to get David out of bed early on a Saturday morning. Tell him we're pregnant. Really? he asked. I think so.