October22

October 22, 2001

Week 23

The last two weeks have really flown by, at least in the way of this pregnancy. I'm still in awe over what we saw on the ultrasound two weeks ago. She was so cute, twiddling her fingers at one time, then clapping her hands together another. Those images will always be ingrained in my memory. Last week wasn't an easy week for me because Phil was gone all week to a legal conference in Montreal, so for the first time in this pregnancy I had to cope with getting up from sitting, and staying propped up in bed at night without his support or his boost when I needed to get out of bed. I did manage to get through the whole week though without dealing with trying to tie my shoes, because I just kept my tennis shoes tied the entire time and I slipped my feet in and out of them. :) It was a really hard week not having him around though, I don't like not having my best friend around for whenever I wanted a hug or to talk! It's odd that even though we don't see each other during the work days, it's still comforting to know I can just give him a call whenever I want. This past week I had to wait until right before bed to talk to him, so it made for long days. There were a few times that the baby started moving around a whole lot, and I just really wanted to call and tell him. There was one time during a nightly phonecall that I put the phone right on my belly and he talked to Natalie for awhile. According to everything I've read, she's able to hear our voices all the time now, so I know she was able to hear her daddy saying hello even though he was out of the country! He got home yesterday afternoon, so things feel better now. I remember when Phil first found out he had been selected to go to the conference, it was around the start of the pregnancy, and we thought how far along we would be when mid-October got here and he would be going! And now it's come and gone; it's just really amazing how fast the time is going. Tomorrow will be exactly four months from my due date. Am I ready for this? No way! We really do need to soon start getting the nursery put together though, the lack of movement in that "preparing" area is really starting to get to me. Maybe I'll feel more like things are under control if I can start working on getting the nursery set up.

Natalie has really started moving around a lot. It's just so amazing how much stronger - and probably bigger - she's gotten in just two weeks since our ultrasound. At our last appointment I was so scared because I hadn't been feeling her move very much, but then within a few days that wasn't a problem at all anymore, her movements changed from the light "fluttering-like" movements to definite kicks and stretches. On Wednesday of last week, I started to realize a pattern to her movements. For the three days before that, I noticed that she would get really active about an hour and a half after lunch, at around 2 in the afternoon. On Friday morning, she actually woke me up before my alarm went off with her not-so-little-anymore kicks! She's definitely starting to stretch out in there - and my lower abdomen is really starting to show it. Despite all the stretch mark cream I slather on every morning and night, more little track marks show up almost daily. Phil told me last night it looks like I've got little tire treads on my stomach. A lot of the marks are identical on either side, too, so at least I almost have a matching set of red lines. Ugh. I did read last week that stretch marks, or lack thereof, are often genetic - if your mother had them, almost without fail you will too, no matter how much lotion you put on. So, I guess I'm just stuck. I am still using the cream all the time though, and drinking a LOT of water every day to try to keep my skin as hydrated and pliable as possible.

Something else I've read recently is a report from Parents magazine. It said the name Natalie is number 32 of the top 100 names so far in 2001, according to social security card registrations through September of this year. I think that's far enough down that there won't be a dozen Natalie's in her class! It was pretty interesting that on the boy's name list, the name Nathan is just one up from Natalie, number 31 out of 100 names. So I guess for both names we picked pretty evenly. :) Jayne wasn't on the list at all, but that's not a big surprise. I guess we've now sort of started a family tradition of naming the first-born girl with the mother's middle name, since my sister has my mom's middle name, Joyce. Phil and I have really started loving the name we picked out in the last couple weeks. Natalie Jayne just feels right, even if we do get complaints from my family. Everyone else I talk to just loves the name Natalie, but my family can't seen to get over that there's not a good nickname for it. Toward the middle of the week last week, I got so upset about it that I even considered maybe thinking about a new name, just because I DO NOT want the family calling her by a name that completely grates my nerves, "Nattie". I don't know why, but it really, really irritates me to hear that. Mom said that it's because in our family every girl's name ends in an "ie" sound, to which I responded, well, what does "NATALIE" end in?? But apparently there's one other caveat, the nickname also has to be two syllables. So I started polling my friends and those on the message board that I write to, and not a single person who has ever known a Natalie said they were EVER called "Nattie". My friend Renee Shilling sister's name is Natalie and she was never called Nattie either. So I felt better knowing that it wouldn't be a sure thing for her to be called that by the general public if her name was Natalie. I'm sure that Natalie won't be able to say her name correctly when she's a toddler just learning to talk, and she might even come up with a permeation that sounds like "Na-ie", but in my opinion there's a huge difference between a toddler not being able to say a complete name and an adult forcing a nickname on her. To all my relatives who insist that she'll be called "Nattie", I'm just asking for you to please just DON'T call her that. Let her figure out what she wants to be called. If she ends up wanting to be called Nattie, then so be it, she'll call herself that and it will end up sounding right as time goes on, but Phil and I refuse to change the name that we have fallen in love with just to avoid a potential nickname. And especially since, honestly, it's no one else's business. This is my baby, and if I want to give her a name that doesn't have an "appropriate" nickname, then that's our decision. I really don't want to sound so harsh about it, but it really did start to deeply upset me last week, which I really don't need right now anyway, and the fact of the matter is that Phil and I have really fallen in love with the name Natalie. After considering maybe changing her name - since we really still can at this point, we have four months! - the thought of doing so just for the reason of a nickname really made me upset. Ever since Phil and I found out it was a girl, we'd been talking to Natalie using her name, and it just seemed to fit right away, and it has more and more in the last two weeks. It suddenly made her feel even more real, it's a little person in there and not just some stomachache that's making my belly bloat up. We did get one suggestion of a nickname that I could grow used to, and if it ends up feeling right after she's born - Talie. I'm still trying to warm up to that, but if people insist on not using her name then it's certainly better than "Nattie", which sounds whiney and gross to me. But we will be calling her Natalie, three syllables instead of two is not too difficult so I really don't think it needs to be shortened anymore than that. If Natalie decides on her own version from there, I'm sure we'll love it but until then, and unless Phil and I decide to change or shorten it on our own terms, her name is Natalie. Please respect us in this decision and don't fight us about it -it's no one else's decision but ours. I really hope no one gets upset about this, but if someone does, just get over it -to use a favorite family phrase! :) - because it's pretty silly to get upset about something you have no say in anyway. Enough said about that, I promised to write this journal to record ALL of my thoughts and feelings during this time, good and bad, so I didn't want to ignore what was the most upsetting thing for me the last couple of weeks. I think because of this whole ordeal, for later kids I'm going to do what my friend Marcia has done and keep the name a complete secret until the baby is born. She just didn't want to deal with hearing everyone's opinion on such an important, lifetime decision months before it was really set in stone anyway. I didn't want to do that, to keep the name a secret, because I don't like surprises anyway, I'd rather have something concrete to talk about and look forward to (this also relates to the fact that someone wants to plan me a surprise shower - I'm really grateful and excited that someone is planning me a shower but I'd really rather know about it so I can look forward to it, and to make sure that the right people get invited and I don't show up for my own shower dressed in sweatpants and uncombed hair - but that's another issue for another day!) but in this case for our sanity I probably won't tell the name next time. I mean really, maybe Natalie will come out and not even LOOK like a Natalie, and we'll change the name anyway. Or she may surprise us and end up being a Nathan after all, the chance is always there even if slim!

One more thing I wanted to mention this week, I think Natalie still doesn't like the idea of me eating chicken. About a week and a half ago, Phil and I decided to get wrap sandwiches at Easton at a place called CV Wrappers. I just love their Colorado Ranch chicken. I figured, it's a wrap sandwich, the chicken pieces are really small and all mixed up with ranch sauce, lettuce, and other stuff so it's very well hidden! Well, I was wrong - the baby wasn't fooled. I was sick all night that night. In the middle of the night my body was rejecting it from just about every possible way. So, Thanksgiving might be interesting this year, since we often have a roasted chicken instead of turkey! Pass me more mashed potatoes please! :) I just hope she gets over it because I can't go the next 18 years never cooking chicken again; beef and pork chops really do get old after awhile! I've got a feeling she'll hate chicken and just can't get enough of carrots. :)



	October 22, 2001 Week 23 The last two weeks have really flown by, at least in the way of this pregnancy. I'm still in awe over what we saw on the ultrasound two weeks ago. She was so cute, twiddling her fingers at one time, then clapping her hands together another. Those images will always be ingrained in my memory. Last week wasn't an easy week for me because Phil was gone all week to a legal conference in Montreal, so for the first time in this pregnancy I had to cope with getting up from sitting, and staying propped up in bed at night without his support or his boost when I needed to get out of bed. I did manage to get through the whole week though without dealing with trying to tie my shoes, because I just kept my tennis shoes tied the entire time and I slipped my feet in and out of them. :) It was a really hard week not having him around though, I don't like not having my best friend around for whenever I wanted a hug or to talk! It's odd that even though we don't see each other during the work days, it's still comforting to know I can just give him a call whenever I want. This past week I had to wait until right before bed to talk to him, so it made for long days. There were a few times that the baby started moving around a whole lot, and I just really wanted to call and tell him. There was one time during a nightly phonecall that I put the phone right on my belly and he talked to Natalie for awhile. According to everything I've read, she's able to hear our voices all the time now, so I know she was able to hear her daddy saying hello even though he was out of the country! He got home yesterday afternoon, so things feel better now. I remember when Phil first found out he had been selected to go to the conference, it was around the start of the pregnancy, and we thought how far along we would be when mid-October got here and he would be going! And now it's come and gone; it's just really amazing how fast the time is going. Tomorrow will be exactly four months from my due date. Am I ready for this? No way! We really do need to soon start getting the nursery put together though, the lack of movement in that "preparing" area is really starting to get to me. Maybe I'll feel more like things are under control if I can start working on getting the nursery set up. Natalie has really started moving around a lot. It's just so amazing how much stronger - and probably bigger - she's gotten in just two weeks since our ultrasound. At our last appointment I was so scared because I hadn't been feeling her move very much, but then within a few days that wasn't a problem at all anymore, her movements changed from the light "fluttering-like" movements to definite kicks and stretches. On Wednesday of last week, I started to realize a pattern to her movements. For the three days before that, I noticed that she would get really active about an hour and a half after lunch, at around 2 in the afternoon. On Friday morning, she actually woke me up before my alarm went off with her not-so-little-anymore kicks! She's definitely starting to stretch out in there - and my lower abdomen is really starting to show it. Despite all the stretch mark cream I slather on every morning and night, more little track marks show up almost daily. Phil told me last night it looks like I've got little tire treads on my stomach. A lot of the marks are identical on either side, too, so at least I almost have a matching set of red lines. Ugh. I did read last week that stretch marks, or lack thereof, are often genetic - if your mother had them, almost without fail you will too, no matter how much lotion you put on. So, I guess I'm just stuck. I am still using the cream all the time though, and drinking a LOT of water every day to try to keep my skin as hydrated and pliable as possible. Something else I've read recently is a report from Parents magazine. It said the name Natalie is number 32 of the top 100 names so far in 2001, according to social security card registrations through September of this year. I think that's far enough down that there won't be a dozen Natalie's in her class! It was pretty interesting that on the boy's name list, the name Nathan is just one up from Natalie, number 31 out of 100 names. So I guess for both names we picked pretty evenly. :) Jayne wasn't on the list at all, but that's not a big surprise. I guess we've now sort of started a family tradition of naming the first-born girl with the mother's middle name, since my sister has my mom's middle name, Joyce. Phil and I have really started loving the name we picked out in the last couple weeks. Natalie Jayne just feels right, even if we do get complaints from my family. Everyone else I talk to just loves the name Natalie, but my family can't seen to get over that there's not a good nickname for it. Toward the middle of the week last week, I got so upset about it that I even considered maybe thinking about a new name, just because I DO NOT want the family calling her by a name that completely grates my nerves, "Nattie". I don't know why, but it really, really irritates me to hear that. Mom said that it's because in our family every girl's name ends in an "ie" sound, to which I responded, well, what does "NATALIE" end in?? But apparently there's one other caveat, the nickname also has to be two syllables. So I started polling my friends and those on the message board that I write to, and not a single person who has ever known a Natalie said they were EVER called "Nattie". My friend Renee Shilling sister's name is Natalie and she was never called Nattie either. So I felt better knowing that it wouldn't be a sure thing for her to be called that by the general public if her name was Natalie. I'm sure that Natalie won't be able to say her name correctly when she's a toddler just learning to talk, and she might even come up with a permeation that sounds like "Na-ie", but in my opinion there's a huge difference between a toddler not being able to say a complete name and an adult forcing a nickname on her. To all my relatives who insist that she'll be called "Nattie", I'm just asking for you to please just DON'T call her that. Let her figure out what she wants to be called. If she ends up wanting to be called Nattie, then so be it, she'll call herself that and it will end up sounding right as time goes on, but Phil and I refuse to change the name that we have fallen in love with just to avoid a potential nickname. And especially since, honestly, it's no one else's business. This is my baby, and if I want to give her a name that doesn't have an "appropriate" nickname, then that's our decision. I really don't want to sound so harsh about it, but it really did start to deeply upset me last week, which I really don't need right now anyway, and the fact of the matter is that Phil and I have really fallen in love with the name Natalie. After considering maybe changing her name - since we really still can at this point, we have four months! - the thought of doing so just for the reason of a nickname really made me upset. Ever since Phil and I found out it was a girl, we'd been talking to Natalie using her name, and it just seemed to fit right away, and it has more and more in the last two weeks. It suddenly made her feel even more real, it's a little person in there and not just some stomachache that's making my belly bloat up. We did get one suggestion of a nickname that I could grow used to, and if it ends up feeling right after she's born - Talie. I'm still trying to warm up to that, but if people insist on not using her name then it's certainly better than "Nattie", which sounds whiney and gross to me. But we will be calling her Natalie, three syllables instead of two is not too difficult so I really don't think it needs to be shortened anymore than that. If Natalie decides on her own version from there, I'm sure we'll love it but until then, and unless Phil and I decide to change or shorten it on our own terms, her name is Natalie. Please respect us in this decision and don't fight us about it -it's no one else's decision but ours. I really hope no one gets upset about this, but if someone does, just get over it -to use a favorite family phrase! :) - because it's pretty silly to get upset about something you have no say in anyway. Enough said about that, I promised to write this journal to record ALL of my thoughts and feelings during this time, good and bad, so I didn't want to ignore what was the most upsetting thing for me the last couple of weeks. I think because of this whole ordeal, for later kids I'm going to do what my friend Marcia has done and keep the name a complete secret until the baby is born. She just didn't want to deal with hearing everyone's opinion on such an important, lifetime decision months before it was really set in stone anyway. I didn't want to do that, to keep the name a secret, because I don't like surprises anyway, I'd rather have something concrete to talk about and look forward to (this also relates to the fact that someone wants to plan me a surprise shower - I'm really grateful and excited that someone is planning me a shower but I'd really rather know about it so I can look forward to it, and to make sure that the right people get invited and I don't show up for my own shower dressed in sweatpants and uncombed hair - but that's another issue for another day!) but in this case for our sanity I probably won't tell the name next time. I mean really, maybe Natalie will come out and not even LOOK like a Natalie, and we'll change the name anyway. Or she may surprise us and end up being a Nathan after all, the chance is always there even if slim! One more thing I wanted to mention this week, I think Natalie still doesn't like the idea of me eating chicken. About a week and a half ago, Phil and I decided to get wrap sandwiches at Easton at a place called CV Wrappers. I just love their Colorado Ranch chicken. I figured, it's a wrap sandwich, the chicken pieces are really small and all mixed up with ranch sauce, lettuce, and other stuff so it's very well hidden! Well, I was wrong - the baby wasn't fooled. I was sick all night that night. In the middle of the night my body was rejecting it from just about every possible way. So, Thanksgiving might be interesting this year, since we often have a roasted chicken instead of turkey! Pass me more mashed potatoes please! :) I just hope she gets over it because I can't go the next 18 years never cooking chicken again; beef and pork chops really do get old after awhile! I've got a feeling she'll hate chicken and just can't get enough of carrots. :)