Shalmanezer

Why on earth would I mention the King of Assyria on this blog? Perhaps it's because that's the name that my father-in-law has picked out for our unborn child. A previous name for another one of his grandchildren is Ataxerxes. Yeah. I don't get it either. All the same, it will be easy to identify your child in a huge crowd. Unless we went to the Middle East. Maybe I'm just uneducated.

We have rumour that we are having a girl, because Caitlin has found herself craving milk, a tell-tale sign for carrying a girl. In that case, Erini Tiana comes to the front. Just today we were pondering the spelling, and thought that we could go with Erene, or Arene, or Arini. I think we'll be fine, so long as we don't give our child a l33t name, like 3r3n3, or 4r1n1, or 3]^1]\[1. That would be something to have on a birth certificate. I wonder if there is a law against that...

IT'S ALIVE!

We kind of knew that Caitlin had life growing inside her when she got the ultrasound, and the heartbeat was 146 bpm. But now, the baby is actually moving around! This is good, and bad. Good because baby is supposed to move. This shows that baby is active and healthy. This is bad, because now Caitlin has something flopping around inside her, randomly pressing her organs here and there, not to mention expanding her uterus. I don't like it when someone pulls at my skin and streches it more than it should. I can't fathom what it would be like to have someone pushing from the other side of the skin!

Telling it all over again

I just got back to school today, and I met up with some friends and profs that I haven't seen in four months. The usual conversation starts up, and then we come to the interesting note when I realize that I haven't told them about the blog, or the event that that started it! It feels a little weird, because I thought I was done with telling everyone that we're expecting a baby.

Weird, but fun! Some people are really happy for you, and... getting the attention is a bit of a rush. I suppose I should savour the flavour, because life is taking a dramatic change. Very soon.

Growing Pains

Who'd a' thunk it? When your body streches to accomidate for another living being inside, you start to get pains in the area that streches and grows to accomidate for it! That's the new ouchie on Caitlin's list of annoyances. Sore feet is not new, since she works retail and is on her feet for her entire shift most days. But abdomen pains, that's new. Her belly is going to grow out, and streching skin does involve some resistance from the body, which hurts.

When the skin expands gradually, I suppose it's not that bad. But when it's a sudden burst of expansion, such as when the uterus expands to the size of your hand, when it's usually the size of a potato chip, that's going to hurt substantially.

At least the morning sickness is under control. Sort of. It's still a gamble as to what will stay down and what won't.

Swimming will definitely help out though. We still have seven visits left on the card, and I don't think they ever expire. Being in the water helps Caitlin relax, and I like the whole bouyant feeling too. Hopefully next time we'll be in the pool for longer than 25 minutes.