A Functioning Thyroid

Every week I get an email from pregnancycenter.com (I think...) with updates on what is going on with the baby and what is/should be going on with my body too. It has pictures of the baby's current stage, and little tips on how to handle particular things that my be happening during that week of pregnancy. Some weeks the progress hasn't been that monumental to me - while it's still pretty miraculous how it all works, some of the progressions just aren't as awe-inspiring as others.

This week, however, I learned that the baby's thyroid is fully formed and functioning on its own. This is a big deal to me just because I am happy to know that the baby will soon be able to produce its own thyroid hormones rather than depend on my (puny) thyroid. I still need the thyroid to be nice and strong for ME, but the baby won't be dependent on it which I like :) Jelly Belly also has fingernails now - which Austin kindly pointed out can now scratch me. Lovely! Next week we have another doctor appt and we will have another ultrasound - I'm excited to see the progress between the last one and this one!

I talked to Brian this morning and he let me know that he would like to NOT know the sex of the baby until he/she is born. Good thing he doesn't do facebook or follow blogs or any of that social-networking (stalking) that most of us are so accustomed to, or there'd be no way he could be surprised. He also let me know that he will continue to refer to the baby as his neicehew until it is born, and after that the baby will be "he" or "she" until it has done something worthy of earning a name. What on earth does a baby have to do to earn a name? Being pushed through the birth canal out of the warm mommy's body into the cold (and bright!) world isn't enough? I guess not. So I asked him what sort of feat the baby would have to accomplish...he said "something cool, like pooping on you or having diarrhea through the diaper. Should just take a couple days" Fabulous. I then asked if the name the baby earns will be something like "pooper" but I was relieved to find out that at THAT point (and only then) Brian will acknowledge the name-of-choice that we have given him/her.

Speaking of names. We are still bouncing ideas around for girls' names. We seem to be in this never ending struggle. Austin likes "traditional" (boring and outdated if you ask me) names and I like "pretty" (trendy and hip, if you ask austin...and trendy is anything BUT a compliment coming from him) I don't want to offend anyone, so I will leave out the names we each despise, but we struggle with finding a name that we both like. There are names that we both thing are ok, names that we equally dislike, or names that one of us likes and the other doesn't...but nothing that we both say "oh, wow, that's a pretty name" Its a struggle! I want to give our baby a beautiful name, I want it to be special, and I'd like for both of us to keep our lunch down as we say it :) One name I've always loved is our friend Maizeanne. I love it because of its origin. Jan and Marty combined each of their mother's first names to come up with Maizeanne (Maize and Anne...easy enough) Well, Melinda and Candace do not mesh as easily. I've recruited the help of Jodi, my ever-creative friend, on coming up with names that combine our mom's names. I also added their middle names to make it a little easier. SO the options for merging are Melinda Lee Candace Marie. Jodi emailed me a list of THIRTY names that she had come up with. Some are unique and way too out there for us, some are more well-known names just with different spellings (like Lacee) to incorporate the correct letters.

I won't tell you any more of Jodi's ideas - but I invite you to send your own thoughts our way. No promises that we'll use them, but I'd love to hear the suggestions. If nothing else, may be good for a chuckle or two. And in 9 short weeks we will not only know the sex of the baby, but hopefully we will know the name!

One last note on names - It is a huge honor to have someone name their baby after you right? Everyone knows that! I'd be completely honored. But I don't think girls care as much about that as boys do - and I haven't figured out why. If I listened to every "suggestion" for a boys' name my son would be (in the order I received the suggestions) Jordan Robert Kyle Kevin Paul Justin Leon Wallis. If I were to listen to every "suggestion" for a girls' name...I would just have Alexis Wallis. I was talking to Jan (the mother of Maizeanne and Robert) and she said that she, Marty, Robert, and his girlfriend were talking about the baby and someone asked her if we had names picked out. She said "I think they have a boy name and are still thinking about a girl name, but they aren't telling anyone yet" Robert said "Well, I think its pretty obvious what the boy name will be" "Oh yeah?" asks Jan. "Robert. DUH."

No promises Rob, no promises.