Life Day by Day

Having been inspired by Lindy, Tim and I sat down and narrowed our name choices and have posted them to see what everyone else's opinions are. Below is a list of the names and their meanings/origins.

Brac (Welsh) meaning "free". Warren was Tim's grandfather's name, is German, and means "watchman or defender."

Cian pronounced KEE-an (Irish) meaning "ancient". Timothy is after his daddy of course, is Greek, and means "honoring God."

Xander (Greek) meaning "defender of mankind". Gabriel is Hebrew, and means "God is my strength/might."

Aria pronounced AH-ria (Latin) meaning "beautiful melody" or (Hebrew) meaning "lioness" or (Italian) meaning "solo melody". Rose is after my middle name which is Grammy's middle name and part of the first name of her grandmother Rosalind, is Latin, and means "rose: a flower".

Destry (French) meaning "war horse". Rose - see above.

Breana pronounced Bre-ANA, not Bre-anna (Irish) meaning "strong, virtuous, honorable". Rose - see above.

Summer (English) meaning "summertime". Rose - see above.

Anyway, let me know what you think. :)
<3

I'm sitting here going through my morning routine of getting up, dressed, letting Rain out to go potty, getting breakfast and then sitting down at the computer to check for "love" as I took to calling family emails while banished away in Georgia. It is so nice to hear Washington birds singing, and watching Washington clouds roll by, and enjoy early Washington Springtime - they're all so different from Georgia's and all feel like home. :)

Yesterday Tim and I did a bunch of much needed shopping that we have been too busy to do...basics like garbage bags and household cleaners. I feel much more at home now.

I also got my doctor referral all set up and ready to go...now I just need to find a fax machine to send over a copy of my records for the doctor to go over before they accept me as a patient. It was funny though, when I went over to the Women's Health center to get my referral I knew just what I needed and so I walked right up to the desk and told them I was there to get a referral to an OB/GYN off base. They paused a second and looked at me and then said, "Have you had a pregnancy test done yet?" I gasped inwardly then said as politely as I could, since I was half flattered and half irritated, "I'm actually almost 5 months pregnant...We just transferred here from Georgia." The two ladies both stood up and looked over the rather high desk at my tummy and exclaimed there was no way I was almost 5 months...I obliged them by turning sideways (I WAS wearing a snug shirt so they should have seen something already!!) to show off my bump and they still said, now teasingly, that they didn't think I was really pregnant at all so they shouldn't give me a referral until I got a pregnancy test done, and how much they hated me, etc. It was really an odd feeling because I was half flattered and happy, and half irritated and disappointed that at one week shy of entering my 5th month they couldn't tell I was even pregnant! lol. Gah. Ah well.

Today I'm going to try to get together the Marcela...I haven't seen her face to face in about a year and a half! It's ridiculous. I still haven't met Julian yet, so I get to do that today as well...he's almost a year old already. I'm a little nervous because a) I haven't seen her in so long that I am always awkward...She never is, lucky her. :P and b) The more people I connect with again here, the more social demands on my time there will be. I've always been something of a home-body - I love having time to myself to do whatever I want or just the normal, steady domestic stuff without any pressures, and I really don't like being pushed and pulled into doing stuff I don't want to do when all I want is just some time at home. Knowing this was going to be an issue when we moved back up here, I gave myself permission to turn down any social invitation or pressure that may come my way if I wanted to. I'm a people pleaser so this is rather difficult for me, but I know that if I don't do it, I'll end up resenting the other person for "making" me do something I didn't want to...and that's not fair to them or our relationship!! Anyway, I'm just going to have to keep that up...especially as more people are added to my social group here.

Well off I get.
<3

Wow. So much has happened since my last blog that I don't even know where to start.

We just got internet yesterday, and I'm so happy to be back online!! We've been keeping very busy moving in and setting our place up. So far the living room, dining room, and kitchen are pretty much done with only a little tweak here and there left to do, then our bedroom needs to be decorated, the two bathrooms need to be decorated and organized and then, last but not least, baby's room needs to be cleared out and organized to get ready for the furniture etc. that needs to go in there soon. :) I am much, much slower moving in and setting up this house then our others so far because I can't move or carry very many of the boxes! I usually move the furniture, move and organize the boxes, etc. but now, alas, I am limited to lifting 20lbs of weight. So anyway things are going much more slowly.

Rain absolutely loves her back yard. We have to the east, a mixed dog that she is currently playing with, to the south a boxer who likes to run back and forth along the fence with her and kitty-corner to the south-west is a male American Bulldog. They sit in their corners of the yard and look at each other...sometimes he'll bark at her and she'll run a lap then go back to watching each him. It's cute. :)

Baby is growing quickly and I am much bigger now...It's just beginning to get a little breathless when I have to bend down and tie my shoes from a sitting position as baby is taking up all my lung space. A week or so? ago I began to feel baby move! It must be an athlete in the making because it moves a LOT...I feel it at the very least 4-5 times a day. It is so fun to feel it moving around and knowing that it is all "real".

I have a doctor all lined up and today my big project is to get my referral all squared away and send her my records. I am so looking forward to getting this all underway again - to find out how I'm doing and how baby is doing.

Well, that is how everything is going in a nut-shell. I better get back to my organizing and unpacking.
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Good morning. It is bright and sunshiney again today - already 42F and it's only 10am. Yesterday it got up in the high 70s, low 80s and it was SO nice. Tim and I spent a bunch of time outside clearing out the storage shed, sweeping it, etc. and I even got to play with Rain and the hose. :) She still loves it and got completely drenched. Now we don't have to give her a bath yay! :) We let her dry off in the sun and she was a content dog all sprawled out chewing on a stick...what a good, happy day. I'm going to miss the Spring since it is so obviously blooming down here...But at least I get to see it come to Washington as well in a couple months!

I will be taking tummy pictures today since Mom wanted them every other week and this is our 14th week. Can you believe that?! 14 weeks already! My tummy is definitely expanding bit by bit and now I have only 1 pair of jeans I can wear comfortably...I can't wait to find some maternity pants because I'm getting tired of the unbuttoning and unzipping just to sit down or be comfortable standing, even, in some.

It kind of sucks though...I read that for "proper" weight gain during pregnancy, you should aim at gaining 3-4 pounds your first trimester, and then roughly 1/2 to 1 pound per week in the second...Well, my pre-pregnancy weight was 128, and I just weighed myself this morning - one week into my 2nd trimester - and I still only weigh 125. :( That sucks. I have been eating a lot lately I feel like, and not just all veggies and fruits for goodness sake. Where is it all going? I am a little irritated by it just because I know when I go into the doctor next and am weighed, they're going to be all "you're got gaining weight properly and need to eat more...this is not the time to watch your weight!" etc, etc... I'm trying for heaven's sake, but I refuse to eat junk just to gain weight... I mean, how does THAT help baby out? It might even harm it because my stomach space is being taken up by stuff that doesn't have any nutritional value to it. No, I'll keep eating when I'm hungry and even if I'm not I'll make sure to eat at least 3 square meals a day. I figure my body will let me know what it needs, and I'll just be sure to keep it fed with healthy, productive things...heck, it's only been the past 50 years or so that doctors even started monitoring a woman's weight gain, and then they have just averaged it out and said "this is what EVERYONE should be doing".

Well, speaking of which, I just finished my nice big bowl of oatmeal and off I go to give Mom a call. :)
<3

Here are a couple pictures we took of my tummy today, at 12 weeks. It definitely is beginning to show a slight roundness...kinda' looks like I have just finished Thanksgiving dinner, all the time. :)

It's been awhile since my last post. :/ I just haven't been feeling all that well lately, but it's all good. :)

Today I have been working on my baby registries...it looks like I'll have two main ones - one at Walmart, and one at Target. It is so hard to pick out stuff...I don't know what's best for so many things!! Like a stroller...there are hundreds of options and I just don't know. Even swings are complicated. I wish the stuff would just show up and I'll make whatever I get work lol.

So far my tummy really hasn't changed much, though it is beginning to look like I've eaten a big meal most of the time. Oddly enough it seems to look bigger in the evening, and almost normal in the morning. Huh.

We went to the doctor's for my monthly check up on the 23rd, and at first they couldn't find a heart beat on the Doppler. I wasn't worried because I feel very pregnant :) but the doctor wanted to do an ultrasound just to make sure. Luckily, she was able to do the normal, external ultrasound now that I'm almost 12 weeks. Sure enough, after a little bit of searching, there was baby. It was moving around like crazy...pulling up its little legs and then kicking out. Once it looked like it spun completely around. Very cute to watch. I guess baby must be shy because she had a hard time finding the heartbeat even then and the picture wasn't very clear. Ah well, she said baby looks happy and healthy so all is well.

I am confused on one point though...when does the second trimester start? I have heard 12, 13, and 14 weeks. I asked our doctor, and she said that it's 12 weeks, going into the 13th week. So I guess that means I start my second trimester this Sunday since I'll be 12 weeks then? Or does that mean I enter it next Sunday when I'm officially 13 weeks?

Confusing stuff.

Well I gotta go get some organizing done today while I'm still feeling up to it. Love you all.
<3

Okay, this is just a "for fun" post since it is still SO early in the pregnancy that names are not a big issue yet...however, we are slowly going over some names and oddly enough, we're already getting hounded by people as to what the sex is and what we're going to name it lol. So anyway, here are the names that we're leaning toward at this point. I am sharing them with much trepidation as it always seems like as soon as names are shared everyone in the world wants to use them, so I'm almost superstitious as to not saying them out loud. :)

The names we're choosing from are off of a list I've made over the years of names that just struck me at the time, with a couple Tim has added.

First, I'll put the girl names that Tim and I both agree on:

Breana (Irish) "Strong, virtuous, honorable"
Raeden (Japanese) "Nest, lovely" also "Mythology: Raiden was the god of thunder and lightning."
Essence (Latin) "Life; existence"

Okay, now the ones that Tim likes, and me not so much:

Echo
Patience

And the ones that I like and Tim not so much:

Destry (I REALLY like this name) "War horse"
Shae, Shay, Shaye (Irish) "Fairy palace, a gift"

Okay, for the boy's names, here are the ones that Tim and I both like:

Cian (Irish - pronounced KEE-an) "Ancient"
Brac (Welsh) "Free"
Lyric (Latin) "Melodic word"

Tim's choice that I'm not totally in love with at the moment:

Xander (Greek) "Defender of mankind"

My choice that Tim doesn't like very much:

Creed (Latin) "Belief"

If we have a girl, the middle name will pretty much definitely be Rose after my middle name, Grammy's middle name, and Grammy's grandma's name. :) If it's a boy, however, we have lots of choices. I would like to name him after Tim and have the middle name be Timothy, but Tim doesn't really like his name so is pretty much against that idea...so our other choices are:

Gideon "Mighty warrior"
Rhett "Enthusiastic, stream"
Drake "Dragon"
Lyric "Melodic word"

Anyway, I would like to hear what your thoughts are in regards to these names!