Claire Devon

We thought picking a middle name would be easy once we'd settled on Claire for the first name, but it wasn't. Anyway, we've finally decided just to go with Devon, for Claire Devon Kirby. We aren't crazy about the way the full name flows (it could use another couple of syllables), but overall we like it better than the other combinations we tossed around.

The main thing we like about Devon is that it's not at all common (ranked No. 793 for 2008) or girly. I don't think of Claire as a girly name either, but we found that when paired with most of the middle names we considered, it took on an overtly feminine quality that we didn't like.

Also, happy six-months-in-utero birthday to Claire (as of last Wednesday)! Here's the six-month/24-week picture, which we actually didn't get around to taking until last night, but it's close enough.

Reservoir randoms

We've had a bunch of warm, sunny days in the past few weeks, and I've tried to take advantage of them by running at the reservoir. I almost inevitably see someone I know. Yesterday I passed a woman who's a casual business acquaintance going the opposite direction.

She said: Hey! ... HEY, I thought you were pregnant!

I thought: What a thing to say! What if I had been pregnant but something had gone terribly wrong? Should I spill all the sad details as we randomly cross paths on the trail?

But I said: I am!

She said: And you're RUNNING?!

I said: Why not?

By that point I was quite a bit past her and there was no prolonging the conversation unless I stopped running, which I didn't. I spent the next few minutes thinking about how crazy it was that she acted like I was crazy for running while pregnant. At every doctor's appointment I confirm with my doctor that it's still fine to keep working out, and all he has ever said is "Keep doing what you're doing" and "The more active you are now, the easier your pregnancy and labor will be."

As I got to the end of the loop I passed a couple of women who were walking. I detoured to the bathroom (because that is one thing about running while pregnant -- I have to pee every couple of miles) and when I came out I ran into them again.

One of them said: Can we ask you something? How old are you? We were trying to guess.

I said: 29.

The other one said: I guessed you were 17!

Ha! They obviously didn't get a good look (if nothing else, my wedding band and baby belly should have tipped them off), but it was good for a laugh anyway. I wonder if that will be the last time I'm ever taken for a teenager.

Anyway, there's no moral to these stories, I'm just blabbering.

Yay for eBay!

Right after writing the last post a wonderful thing happened. I decided to check eBay one more time for the elusive 7 For All Mankind maternity jeans in my size and length and for a reasonable price, and miracle of miracles! A pair had just been listed in my size, with the original (34-inch) inseam, and for less than one-third what they cost in the store!

I was excited but didn't get my hopes up because there were several days of bidding left and I wasn't willing to pay the "buy it now" price. Yesterday, with just a few hours left in the auction, I finally put in a bid, still sure someone would swoop in at the last second and take them from me. But apparently most people in the market for these jeans really have shorter legs than I do because I WON!
I can't wait till they get here. I feel sure they'll fit because they're exactly what I've tried on in the store (and exactly what I wear in non-maternity jeans). But even if they don't, at this price, I'm confident I could resell them and break even, if not turn a profit -- although I might have to throw in a credit for hemming. :)

This afternoon we had our monthly doctor's appointment. It was completely routine -- all they did was check the heartbeat. And weigh me. Apparently I have now gained either seven or nine pounds (the scale flickered back and forth and I don't know which number the nurse went with), almost all of which came in the last month. Clearly I have a healthy appetite.

Yesterday was the first time a stranger commented on my belly, and it happened not once but twice, in Chick-fil-A and then at the new shoe store beside the new TJ Maxx. Amanda was with me both times. The woman at the shoe store also felt the need to inform Amanda she is in fact going to have a boy. Multiple ultrasounds? Whatever. She's carrying it like a boy. (No worries, she agreed that I'm having a girl.)

What to wear

Week 22 already! That's so hard to believe. This is my stomach as of last night:
People who know I'm pregnant keep saying it's really popping out, but I still feel like strangers might look at me and see a beer belly.

Last week I decided, with Matt's input, that rather than buying one pair of super-expensive 7 For All Mankind maternity jeans, I'd buy:

a) one pair of cheap jeans (these are from Motherhood Maternity and with a 31-inch inseam they're just long enough to wear with flats; hopefully they won't shrink AT ALL in the wash, but if they do, they'll make their way to Amanda's closet like countless other pants);


b) one pair of long dressy jeans (these are from GapMaternity and I LOVE THEM. They are long enough to wear with heels or wedges and I can dress them up or down);
c) one pair of casual, lightweight pants that will be good with a T-shirt and flip-flops -- as comfortable as sweatpants, but cuter (I haven't bought any yet, but these are from GapMaternity);
d) and one pair of black dress pants (so far I haven't found a single pair that fits right -- they're all short and baggy).

All of these will add up to less than one pair of designer jeans (crazy) and I think I'll be happier with several options rather than just one perfect pair. I might be wrong about that, but I can say for sure that I LOVE the long Gap dressy jeans (which I'm wearing today). While I don't love the way these "everyday" jeans look on me, they're good enough ... I think.

Loving the band

My stomach continues to grow and I'm going to assume that Claire's to blame, not Girl Scout cookies. (WHY does no cookie manufacturer copy and sell Samoas?!)

Yesterday I wore work pants to church, as usual, and they were uncomfortably tight. I couldn't wait to get home and trade them out for pajama pants. So today I used the belly band with my work pants for the first time. Love it! It's not "the" Bella Band, just a generic I found on eBay, but it works great. In fact, I think everyone -- man or woman, pregnant or not -- should own a belly band for fat days.

I don't know how long it will let me postpone real maternity pants. Carrie didn't like the band, but Amanda used it for months, and they're about the same size (before and during pregnancy) so maybe it's just personal preference.

Speaking of maternity pants, last week we were in Atlanta and our hotel was one mile from A Pea in the Pod, so I decided to bite the bullet and buy the 7 for All Mankind maternity jeans I've been lusting after. I'd seen on their website that the style I wanted was $25 off and I'd called the 800-number to ask if that discount applied in stores as well as online (I was told it did) and how long it was good for (I was told through the end of February).

So Matt and I went to the store, they had one pair in my size, I tried them on, I loved them. Just to make sure, I asked the saleswoman, "These are $25 off, right?" And what did she say? "That sale ended yesterday!" NO! Now I can't buy them for full price, on principle.

I'm going to write a letter to A Pea in the Pod, explain the situation and ask if they'll send me a $25 coupon, but I'm sure they won't. I wish I'd never even known about that short-lived sale. I also wish I'd emailed A Pea in the Pod about how long the sale was going on, rather than just calling -- now it's my word against theirs.

There are a zillion pairs of 7 maternity jeans on eBay, but I'm very hesitant to buy them without trying them on because so many of them have been altered. I don't buy 7s for the label, I buy them for the length -- so I don't want to shell out a lot of money for a pair of jeans that started out with a 34-inch inseam and are now down to 31. If I'm going to wear maternity jeans that aren't quite long enough, I can just get them at Target. Plus, if I buy them off of eBay and they don't work, I'm stuck with them -- I can't just return them to the store -- and I do NOT want to have to deal with reselling them.

Back to my expanding stomach, today was the first day at CrossFit that my stomach definitely hit the ground while I was doing pushups. It was weird -- it felt like there was a ball under me. I didn't like it. I'm also quitting ab workouts as of today because I'm afraid of building ab muscles around the bump.

Can you believe we're more than halfway through this pregnancy? Or only halfway through -- I can't decide which.

P.S. We still haven't decided on a middle name ...

Claire

First things first. I think we've settled on Claire as the baby's first name. The middle name is still up in the air but I promise we'll decide before she's born (and probably a lot sooner, like by next week). But it would be OK if you wanted to start getting attached to the idea of an adorable new human named Claire Kirby.

We like Claire because (in our opinion) it's pretty and classic -- I can imagine a grandmother named Claire just as easily as a baby Claire. It's feminine but not girly, simple but not plain. And as the 66th-most-common name of 2008, it's a level of popularity that we like: not weird or unusual -- everyone will recognize it and spell it right -- but she also won't be one of four Claires in her kindergarten class.

Not that Matt (No. 6 for 1978) and I (No. 1 for 1979) have any lingering resentments about that. :)

Saturday we ventured to Babys 'R' Us for the first time and it was, in a word, overwhelming. The average baby probably actually needs less than 10 percent of what is sold in there, but whatever. We didn't plan to buy anything on that trip, we just wanted to start getting an idea of what's out there for the few big-ticketish items we probably are going to buy before she's born: crib, "play yard" (Pack 'n' Play), stroller and glider/rocking chair/recliner.

I think this is the crib we're going to get: It doesn't convert to a toddler bed, which is the current rage, but that's actually our preference because we hope to have a few more kids in fairly quick succession and therefore will probably just keep a nursery set up in our house for the next decade. The kids can all use the same crib and other nursery furniture and after outgrowing the crib they'll probably go straight to a full-size bed.

We were thrilled when Terry told us this weekend that Matt's baby furniture was still around somewhere, and yesterday we found and claimed it. The dresser was in Stephen's guest room and the chest of drawers was in his old room at Ron's house. We brought both of them home and I'm going to beg Terry to help me faux-finish them for the nursery. I want something gender-neutral, maybe a good green. One of these pieces will double as the changing table with a changing table topper similar to this:

OK, that is all ... for now.

Ultrasound pictures

I can't decipher much from them, but here are Tuesday's ultrasound pictures. She wiggled around a lot but didn't do anything awesome like give us a thumbs-up, like Brianna did. :)

We thought we'd be ready to announce the name by now but we aren't quite there. It's such a big decision -- so permanent! And so many things to consider. Will her monogram spell out something vulgar? Is there a famous murderer with this name? Does it suit a teenager, business woman, mom, grandmother as well as it suits a cute baby? Will people constantly misspell it? Aaaah!

We're probably 90 percent decided and hope to make a final decision in a few days so we (and you) can start referring to her by name. Although for now I'm happy just to be able to call her "her" instead of "it."

It's a girl!

Click here for details ...

Visible bump

Finally, finally, I have a bump that shows up in pictures! I can still wear all of my pants but most of my work pants are starting to get tight. I can probably squeeze another couple of weeks out of them. My jeans are still fine since they sit lower than my work pants.

Check out the growth.

This was taken at 4 weeks, right after I found out I was pregnant:

I took pictures at 8 weeks, 12 weeks, 16 weeks ... still no change ... then this one at 17 weeks (I thought the bump would show up in last week's pictures, since there was no mistaking it in real life, but it didn't):

Then, today's 18-week photo. Can you believe the difference a week made?Time to get diligent about the stretch-mark-prevention cream. I wish I believed in that stuff but I think it's more about genetics (but I'll use it anyway).

P.S. Have you ever seen such a disgusting-looking sweet potato?

Making him/herself known

I've started feeling the baby move a lot more and it's feeling less like bubbles than like definite movements (I can't feel kicking yet). I have noticed I almost always feel the movements only on my left side -- can any of you more experienced moms or pregnant people tell me if that's normal?

Both times that the doctor listened to the baby's heartbeat it (the heartbeat) was on my right side, so maybe it's just that the baby's legs are on the left side and I'm feeling them kick. I guess that could be the explanation but I pictured the baby moving around a lot more than that, not staying in essentially the same position all this time.

Last night, or actually this morning, around 5 I woke up flat on my back and felt something poking out of the left side of my stomach. It was definitely solid and it felt like an elbow but I'm guessing it was a foot. It felt like you could have seen it poking out, but since the room was dark I don't know. I lay there for a while rubbing it, trying to get it to move so I'd know for sure it was the baby and not a tumor or something, but it just stayed there until I got up to use the bathroom.

When I got back in bed it was gone and I fell back asleep. Although I sometimes have very lifelike dreams and occasionally have even confused them with reality, I am about 95 percent sure this really happened. And Amanda assured me this morning that it was possible to feel that this early.

And speaking of dreams, I had a VERY vivid dream last night that the baby is a boy. For the record, I still think it's a girl -- but I know it's 50/50 and don't really put any stock in gut feelings (or dreams) about things like this.

Hormones

I don't feel hormonal, but something's off because I have cried over some crazy things lately. Such as a TV remote that wouldn't work for me and then immediately worked for Matt. And a Sports Guy column about a dog that died. And Kay Yow's death (very sad, but it's not like I knew her personally). And the taste of Coke (happy tears). Matt could give you more examples.

It's like irrational PMS tears except that in this case I know as I'm crying that I'm reacting disproportionately, and usually that makes me laugh through the tears. Whereas with PMS outbreaks it was usually the next day before I realized how unreasonable I was being.

In other news, my bump is starting to show (I've been saying that for weeks, but finally other people are acknowledging it). I even got my first belly pat last week, courtesy of Lauren R. My clothes still fit fine and I haven't gained any weight -- yet -- but I looked back at Amanda's pictures and she started to pop between 16 and 20 weeks so I bet I'll be the same.

I hesitate to talk about "cravings" while pregnant because I don't think I've been craving anything more now than I did before I was pregnant. I mean, hearing me say "We need to make a chocolate cake RIGHT NOW" is not something Matt experienced for the first time in the past 17 weeks.

But in the past month or so especially there have been certain foods that sound good to me all the time: grilled cheese sandwiches, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, cheese toast, Kraft macaroni and cheese, peanut butter and crackers, pizza, oatmeal, Chick-fil-A, cereal, yogurt, grapefruit juice and FRUIT. All fruit, but especially strawberries, white grapes, blueberries and oranges ... I cannot get enough.

All of those foods, with the exception of pizza, are pretty bland. Heavily seasoned foods, even those that I love -- chili, steaks, lasagna, Japanese food -- are totally unappealing to me right now. This seems like something that would have hit in the first trimester; I don't know what's causing it. It's not that foods with strong flavors make me feel queasy, not at all; they just, as I said, don't sound good.

Matt thought I was crazy until Carrie told him she went through a pregnancy phase of wanting nothing but grilled cheese and PB&J sandwiches. I suppose it will pass. I'm fine with it, but it does make me completely unmotivated to cook, so I feel bad for Matt.

No news is good news

We had a good, uneventful doctor's appointment on Tuesday. I didn't even get undressed -- I'm not sure what the point of the visit was -- but we did get to hear the heartbeat again (155 beats per minute). The best thing about that appointment was that we got to schedule our NEXT one -- Feb. 10 -- when we'll find out the sex of the baby! I still think it's a girl ... Matt thinks it's a boy ... we'll be happy either way.

Soon after that visit we'll be announcing the baby's name, so stay tuned. And although we aren't disclosing the names we're thinking about, this is your last call if there are ones you feel we must consider. Don't get your hopes up, though -- I think we're pretty set. :)

I asked the doctor if it would be OK to sign up for the Nashville half-marathon in April, and he said it was fine as long as I was in shape for it and stayed hydrated during it. Carrie and Jacob have signed up for it, Stephen was going to if I did and Matt would have joined us for the trip. I don't love half-marathons, but it's supposed to be a really fun race, with a band every mile and great crowd support. Plus there's something about being pregnant, especially visibly so (which I assume I will be by then), that takes off ALL pressure to run fast.

But I was thinking the race was on April 29, which is only nine days after Amanda's due date, and I know first babies sometimes tend to come late. I definitely don't want to be in Nashville during Brianna's birth, nor do I want to lose a not-cheap race registration fee if that's how the timing works out. And then yesterday Carrie told me the race is actually on April 25 -- even closer to Amanda's due date, and more of a potential conflict -- so I think I've decided to skip the race. It would have been a fun road trip/long weekend, but not as much fun as holding my newest niece!

I feel kind of stupid putting this out there because I'm not sure it's even possible yet, and I don't like thinking of myself as a crazy pregnant woman with an overactive imagination ... but I wonder if I've been feeling the baby move for a few days. It hasn't happened often, but I've noticed a kind of fluttery or bubbly feeling while lying in bed a few times. I have read online of people feeling this sensation around 14-16 weeks, but it seems much more common in another month or so.

For Kate

I haven't posted in awhile but I have a good excuse -- nothing seems to be going on pregnancy-wise! Which isn't really true, the baby has grown from a plum to a peach to a lemon since the last time I wrote, and formed teeth, approached normal proportions (its head is only a third of the size of its body now), and started sucking its thumb and breathing amniotic fluid. Amazing!

I feel and look as utterly unpregnant as ever. You know those birth-control pills that let you have only four periods a year? I always thought those were a terrible idea because if you did accidentally get pregnant, you might not know for a couple of months. When you're doing your best to not be pregnant a monthly period is wonderfully reassuring.

Now that I'm three and a half months pregnant I feel more strongly than ever that I could never be comfortable with that particular pill. I am (was) religious about taking birth control exactly as prescribed, at exactly the same time every day, etc., and therefore I always had perfect confidence that I was protected. And while I could recognize certain pregnancy symptoms (tiredness, sensitivity to smells) once I knew I was pregnant, they surely wouldn't have been strong enough to make me suspect pregnancy if I were trying to avoid it. Can you imagine blithely carrying on with your life, only to discover one day that you were a third of the way through a pregnancy? No thank you.

For a few days about a week ago I had a string of mild to terrible headaches and I was worried they were related to the pregnancy, coming as the did around the beginning of the second trimester. Thankfully, they have been gone for four straight days now and I think they must have had another cause: either not eating enough, not drinking enough water, getting too much sleep over the holidays, or being off my regular workout routine (only working out about three times over two weeks).

I had welcomed Cokes back into my life around Christmas but I don't think the added caffeine was directly contributing to the headaches -- but I do think that every bottle of Coke I drank probably represented a bottle of water I didn't drink. And that probably left me a little dehydrated, which is bad news for headaches. This week I've gone back to water, juice and tea, plus am back to my regular sleep and workout routines and am trying to eat more every day, and it seems to be working.

That's all I've got for now. We go back to the doctor on Tuesday, I think just to hear the heartbeat again, so maybe I'll have more to report then, if not before.