Get the Gift - My Favorite Shower Game

I did a baby shower several years ago where I had to come up with a game. Since then, I've used it again and several people have asked for the the info on it too, so I thought I'd post it here. Then I can just give people a link when they want info on it and I can share with anyone else out there who might be looking for a good shower game. I love this game!

The idea for the game is loosely based on Pass the Parcel, which we played at some of my birthday parties growing up. I wanted to play a game where lots of people got a little prize. I like to spread the love :) So I put my present to the guest of honor in the middle, then I wrapped it in many layers of wrapping. (I stock up on cheap stuff after Christmas that doesn't look like Christmas paper and intersperse it with blank newsprint or whatever else I have around. You could even just use newspaper to be inexpensive.) Inside each layer I put a little favor. I usually buy packs of mini-nail polish and mini-rolls of ribbon at the Target Dollar Spot and then split them up. You could also use something like candy or whatever you want.

The second element I wanted to incorporate is a get-to-know you quality to the game, so rather than just "pass the parcel" I thought we could decide who to pass it to next based on something about that person. My friend had found a few rhymes on the internet (source unknown), so I started with those but there were only about ten. I added to them so there would be plenty for everyone to get one. I taped a rhyme to the top of each layer of the wrapping. Start with the last rhyme on the innermost wrapping and then put the first rhyme on the outermost layer of wrapping.

So here's how it works. You hand the gift to the guest of honor and have her read the first poem from the outside. Here are the little rhymes with the description of the "winner" in bold:



You thought all the gifts were meant for you,
But I have other items too.
So hold up this gift and look all around
Then pass to the one with eyes of darkest brown.

You might think you are the lucky one,
But let's all try to share the fun!
Look around with eyes discreet
And pass to the one with the smallest feet.

Your feet are tiny and very smallest.
Now hand this to someone very tallest.

Please take your time and don't be harried.
Give this to the one who is longest married.

You must be proud of your married life.
Now pass this on to the newest wife.

Of this parcel you are bereft.
Give it to the one on your left.

The longest earrings we're looking for now.
If you're wearing them, step up with a bow.

Now that you have gotten your treat,
Give this to the one with the largest feet.

Look around with all your might
And pass to the one of shortest height.

Now search for all the buttons you can find.
Look for the most, of any kind.

Now don't get cross and please don't fight,
But pass this to the lady third on the right.

Is she here or is she there?
Find the lady with the shortest hair.

Some of us may live far away.
Who came the furthest to be here today?

No matter where she lives on this earth
This lady is living farthest from the place of her birth.

Though it may make you shy, just a smidge,
Being the oldest comes with privilege.

You're the one whose years are most,
But now the youngest will play host.

To whom is this place the dearest?
Pass this on to the person born nearest.

Her life probably does not feel very calm,
So give this to the one who is the newest mom.

Search in this room, not all through the land
And find the one with the longest nails on her hand.

Your nails are so long! That totally rocks!
Now hand this to the person with the longest locks.

You are given the power to choose.
Pass to whoever you want, you cannot lose!

Give this to the person with the longest name.
Learning to spell it was no silly game!

Now the gift goes to the mom with the oldest child.
She can tell us all about how teenagers are wild.

Look straight ahead is what I ask you to do
Then pass to the one directly across from you.

A little discussion and we'll be able to tell
The lady whose name is shortest to spell.

Opposite of giving the worm to the early bird,
Put the gift in the hand whose knock was last heard.

I know, I know, the rhymes are getting worse.
Pass this to the one with the biggest purse!

I think we should stop now, don't you agree?
So give this last gift to the Mother-to-Be.


(I've never done it, but I'm sure the last rhyme could be changed to "Bride-to-Be" so the game could be used for a bridal shower.)

After each little rhyme is read, the group determines who the "winner" is and passes the gift to them. They unwrap a layer, retrieve their favor that was wrapped inside, and read aloud the next rhyme taped to the outside of the next layer. It's up to you whether you want to allow repeat winners or whether you want to skip people who have already won once and find a runner-up who hasn't gotten anything yet. I wrote enough to allow for 27 winners plus the guest of honor, so obviously you can expand or condense to meet your own needs. Let me know if you have any questions, but I hope you enjoy this game as much as I do!

A Mum for the New Mum

When I was in college, I took a class on floral arranging with my sister. It was my last semester and her first so we wanted to take a class together the one semester we would overlap in school. It was SO fun!

One day our teacher highlighted a floral phenomenon I had never heard of before. Homecoming mums. Have any of you heard of these before? Because I'm pretty sure they're non-existent in California where I grew up. In a nutshell these are like corsages on steroids. You know, kind of like how a person trying to get all ripped on steroids is doing something that ought to be attractive in theory, but in practice it's kind of disturbing and gross. Yah, kind like that, but with flowers and ribbons and other flotsam. If you've never seen these before, you really have to see pictures to understand. My descriptions could never convey the full wrath of these suckers.

As far as I understand, these are something that is most popular in areas like Oklahoma and Texas. Which somehow makes sense, what with "everything is bigger in Texas," right? I've still never seen the finished product in person, although I have seen all the supplies for sale in the local craft stores.

I gave birth to Scott about 9 months after we moved to Texas. Imagine my surprise (delight? horror? I don't even know) when I was brought to my hospital room after delivery and I saw this hanging from the door:

My own hospital mum!

And in case you thought it might be an isolated incident, here is the baby girl version I got for Kate:


They're very toned down compared to the homecoming versions, but relative to the size of your baby's body, they're huge! I hope none of the nurses were offended that I never actually pinned those babies to my babies. I tell myself that they MUST be only meant as wall hangings. Right? I don't know. Until I saw pictures with them in use, I would have thought homecoming mums were only meant for attaching wheels to and using as floats in a parade.

I think these photos to prove that I have two bona fide Texas babies. I love it!

You Ask and I Deliver

I know you've been anxiously awaiting the detailed story of Kate's birth. Why is it that so many women just love this stuff? Perhaps because it's the female equivalent of tales of going into battle. Well, suit up in your pink armor and grab your ruffled sword, cuz here we go!

(Or perhaps put on your gauntlet? Made of hospital bracelets?)

Not exactly the sort of bracelet most people mean for a "push present... Seriously, at some point it actually starts to impede movement!

Kate's Birth Story

Because of Kate's two vessel cord, my doc wanted to induce me a little early. As a pregnancy goes longer, there is the risk that the placenta begins to deteriorate and the baby's supply of nutrients suffers. With a two vessel cord, that's even riskier. She suggested we target an induction at 39 weeks.

So the day after I hit 39 weeks I had an induction appointment for 7am, but I got a call the day before asking to move me up to 6am. After a little coordinating with our babysitter for Claire and Scott, we rescheduled for 6am. So bright and early the next morning, our friend came over to our house to stay with the kids until they woke up after which she took them over to her house for the day.

Now I know that you're not supposed to eat right before your induction, but no one explicitly told me this. One of the forms I was given said that I should ask my doctor about this. Oops! guess I "forgot." "Ignorance" is bliss. I had a light breakfast before we headed to the hospital because I remember being SO hungry while in the hospital with Claire and Scott.

After giving them my info and getting into a gown, the first and arguably worst, order of business was my IV. I hate needles, but only because I have had SO MANY bad experiences. In the past I've tried to donate blood and it usually went something like this. Force fluids for 24 hours beforehand. Show up and have multiple nurses look quizzically at my arms trying to find a vein. Have the first attempt get painfully flubbed. Have the second attempt in my other arm be painful the whole time and end with me just STOPPING bleeding. Like I hit the time limit they allow and I've stopped filling the bag without having donated enough for them to use. Then I have to have M help me do everything for the next 24 hours because BOTH my arms are bruised and in pain. So M made me stop even trying to donate blood anymore. I just don't have good veins AT ALL. With both Claire and Scott my IV was in my hand and quite uncomfortable. With Claire it was in my right hand, and so a big pain when trying to do pretty much anything. And with Scott, it was in my left hand, but it hurt like crazy and made my whole hand cold when they sped up the flow to get more fluids in me so I could get my epidural. I hated that it held up my pain relief! I guess I only have obviously usable veins in my hands. This time there really was only one they could use in my right hand, and it was kinda tricky anyway because they said it was "crooked." And after telling my experiences, they tried very hard NOT to put it in my hand, which I appreciated. The first try was in my wrist just below my thumb on my right hand. It didn't work, but it sure hurt! After some wiggling that made me squirm and break out in a sweat, they gave up. Then the nurse called a different nurse. She tried in my inner forearm on my left arm and same thing. OUCH! I had bruises and tenderness from those failed IV attempts for longer than I had pain from delivery:

Yes, those are my arms. And, no, I am not a hairy man, I swear.

Finally they got a great IV just below the crook of my right arm. It didn't really hurt and it ended up not being uncomfortable to bend my arm like I feared. The only drawback was that anytime I bent my arm, the flow would stop and the machines would beep at me. But if not bending my arm was the price I had to pay to get that epidural sooner rather than later, then sign me up and call me the girl with the stick straight arm jutting out.

Once my IV was in place, they told me my doctor was going to come break my water. Enter M to fulfill his role as my advocate. His primary job this time around was to make sure I got my epidural, fast. In my last two labors, the common factor in what made me unable to easily handle my contractions was my water being broken. So M was under strict orders to NOT let them break my water unless I had an epidural. Fortunately, they had already been getting those IV fluids flowing because they knew I was going to want one, so all I had to do was keep making sure I didn't bend my arm! I conceded to let them break my water as long as the epidural was truly "on it's way." When my water was broken, I was still at about 2cm like I had been since my appointment 2 weeks before. My water was broken at 7:14am and that marked the official beginning of my induction. Pitocin was started either just before or just after my water was broken, I don't remember which.

A couple minutes later, the anesthesiologist showed up for my epidural. The epidural went very smoothly (WAY better than getting my IV!) and as I sat hunched over while he finished up my epidural, I was just beginning to feel guilty about getting an epidural before I had even felt a contraction when I felt one and right off the bat, it was pretty uncomfortable. So perfect timing. I felt a few uncomfortable contractions and then the epidural kicked in and I only felt a sort of tightening occasionally when the contractions came.

After laying down for a few minutes with my epidural, my blood pressure monitor started beeping at us. It was taking my blood pressure every 2 minutes as the epidural came into effect, and the numbers were too low. This might have been okay, except along with it Kate's heart rate was dropping when I had a contraction. They like to see “variability” in the heart rate in response to contractions, but they prefer the baby's heart rate to go up and not down. So something had to be done. First try was to have me tilt over to my left side for improved blood flow for Kate. That wasn't enough, so then I had to lay completely on my left side. In the meantime, the anesthesiologist was contacted about my blood pressure. When my blood pressure continued to be too low and continued to cause annoying chimes from the blood pressure machine, it was decided that they needed to give me drugs to raise my blood pressure. What does low mean, you might be asking? I was measuring numbers like 78/28. So you know, almost deadish. I always have low blood pressure (like it's not unheard of for me to measure at 88/56), but this was really something special. Two doses of ephedrine later, my blood pressure was finally reaching acceptable numbers (meaning the systolic was USUALLY over 90 and the diastolic was usually over 40).

Just then the anesthesiologist checked in on me, but since my blood pressure was okay again, he merely suggested that I lay on my right side for a change or my epidural would get lop-sided. So my nurse tried having me lay on my right side. No go. Apparently Kate's heart rate really just didn't like me on my right side. This fit with what I'd seen the whole pregnancy. I can't even count how many times throughout the pregnancy I remember different medical people commenting things like, “This baby just doesn't like you laying flat on your back.” Or, “Let's have you lay on your left side,” followed by, “Much better!”

Now that things had settled down a little, I told my nurse that I really had to pee. Things had been so crazy that she had forgotten to get a catheter in me. We took care of that and she said it was a good thing too because my bladder could have kept Niagra Falls going for quite some time. No wonder I could feel it through the epidural! The nurse suspected it had been impeding labor. Before that I had been checked and was dilated to a 4 or maybe 5. But things REALLY picked up after my bladder wasn't full!

Since I was stuck laying completely on my left side, my epidural did get VERY lop-sided. I could wiggle my toes on my right foot and almost felt like I could have walked on it. It only felt a little tingly to me. My left leg on the other hand was COMPLETE dead weight. I couldn't move it AT ALL. I don't know if it was related to my uneven epidural, but as the blood pressure situation was resolving itself and my bladder was finally empty, I started feeling those contractions more and more until finally they were genuinely hurting again. Because I was hurting again, the nurse checked me at I think it was somewhere around 9:15am-9:30am and said I was dilated to a 7 or maybe even 8. So the anesthesiologist was brought back in and re-dosed my epidural. The nurse told him that this was basically my “delivery dose.” The re-dosed epidural took awhile to help and those contractions were pretty intense. I was even having to use breathing exercises. Imagine that, labor being, like, hard or something!

Those breathing exercises were especially interesting to do when I ended up with an oxygen mask on. This has happened in all three of my deliveries because the babies have reached a point where their heartbeats weren't that fabulous and the nurses know the baby is headed through the most taxing part where they are actually pushed out. So, feeling like Darth Vader having a panic attack, I laid there.

Then the nurse told me to tell her if I got the urge to push. After only a couple minutes, I told her I was feeling “different,” like there was a lot of “pressure.” But it also kinda wasn't hurting as much and I wasn't sure if it was just the epidural redose taking effect or what. I was checked and I was ALMOST to a 10. The nurse told me again to tell her if I got the urge to push. Well, with the very next contraction, I had the urge to push. She checked me after that and it was no longer about dilation because she immediately said, “Oh yes, there's the baby's head, and there's her ear.” So then I had to resist the urge to push while my doctor showed up and they put down all the sterile drapes.

Up until they took the oxygen mask off and actually wanted me to push, I had easily felt every contraction and the accompanying urge to push. At first things were going okay, but after the first or second push, I couldn't really feel it anymore. I knew what I needed to do, but the urge was gone. Figures. The worst part was that it was hard for me to tell exaclty WHEN the contractions were so I wasn't sure WHEN to push. I had to have the nurses tell me and I could tell they were confused because before I hadn't needed that. I guess the epidural finally kicked in all the way! I was probably pushing for maybe 10-15 minutes total.

Toward the end, things kinda stalled and Kate's heartbeat wasn't looking so great and my doctor said that if I didn't get her out on the next push we'd have to use the vaccuum. That motivated me a little throw caution about not pushing with my upper body and such to the wind. The nurse thought that's what got Kate out, but I think it was that at the same time, they had me change position slightly to lay less propped up sitting and more laying on my back. The change of angle seemed like it got things unstuck and I could feel to push better.

Kate's head was delivered and they suctioned her mouth and then while her shoulders were being delivered, Kate cried a little. Before she was even all the way out, so cute! Although, I hope that isn't a portent of an impatient personality! The official time was 10:30am, so just over 3 hours from start to finish. I'll take it.

Then when things died down M went with her to get cleaned up while I was stuck waiting for my epidural to wear off. My right leg felt great, but that left leg, UGH. They needed the delivery room, so they kept checking if I felt like I could move. I kept telling them sorry but I don't have feeling back in my left leg even though my right leg felt fine. I think they didn't believe me despite my explanation about having to lie on my left leg the whole time. Then they would try to have me move my left leg and when I couldn't budge it AT ALL without help, THEN they believed me. It ended up taking FOREVER for me to get feeling back in that leg. They moved me to a postpartum room LONG before I had something more than dead weight attached to my hip.

So I ended up ordering lunch in the LDR room. How great is that? I didn't even have to miss a meal! In fact, had I wanted to, I could have ordered a 2^nd BREAKFAST based on the time!

My poor nurse was SO busy dealing with my quick labor and low blood pressure that she hadn't had a chance to sneak out and use the restroom or eat her breakfast! It's so true. Though it wasn't exactly scary, we were kept on our toes. There was just no “down time” during my labor. I had brought along things to kill time, but a time with “nothing going on” never presented itself!

When I called my mom a little before 11am she was in the car on her way to a tennis game. After I said hello, she asked me to hold on a second. I could just tell because of that and the way she was talking that she thought I was just calling with an update. She came back on the phone and said, “So you're at the hospital.” She thought I was just letting her know how things were going during some down time. So when I told her, “We had Kate,” the surprise in her voice was priceless!

Kate

Kate arrived on Tuesday, June 30, 2009 at 10:30am. She weighed 7 lbs 15.9 oz, which I have been rounding to an even 8 lbs in conversation, because really, who measures to the tenth of an ounce? That makes her my heaviest baby so far, despite being born a week and a half earlier. (Claire was 7 lbs 12 oz and Scott was 7 lbs 13 oz.) On the other hand, I can still claim that all my kids were under 8 lbs! Kate was 20.5 inches long, which is about the same as the other two kids were.

So yes, despite my shameful lack in posting about it (it's almost like I've been busy or something...), Kate was in fact born. Rather promptly in fact. My induction officially started when they broke my water at 7:14 am. I promise the detailed version of the story later for those who want it. For now, just let it be known that she is here, things went smoothly, and we are holed up in the A/C recovering nicely.

And since she is a newborn and will look like a totally different person in a month or so anyway, I shall allow some photos in these early weeks:

Here she is a couple hours old.

Here she is ready to go home from the hospital.

Sweet Relief

Tuesday, June 30th.

Seems like a good birthday to me. Hope so, because it will be Kate's.

(Now if I can just survive the next four days of continuing over 100 degree heat. I was SUPPOSED to have this baby before the worst of the heat hit, but nature decided to remedy that in the last couple weeks. I should have kept my big optimistic mouth shut. I was just tempting fate and it has totally come back to bite me in the butt.)

Bitter Update

So remember all my whining about comparing myself to my other pregnant friends? Well I have no pregnant friends left. Leann had her baby yesterday. Eleven days early.

Double hmph.

How Would You Feel If YOU Scored a 1 Out of 10?

NOTE: I'm going to talk about having a baby. Nothing gory, I promise, but I'll still be throwing a lot of labor lingo around like dilation numbers. I think we can all be grown up enough around here to mention things like *gasp* cervices. Just deal, okay?

(Also, I am happy to have had an excuse to use the plural of cervix. I don't care if "cervixes" is correct too, because "cervices" makes me smile.)


My sister Jessica is having her baby as I write this. She isn't due until tomorrow. (Every time the phone has rung the last few days, I've wondered if it's her telling me she's having/had the baby. She called me on Tuesday just to ask a question and got me all excited. I feel like she needed to start every conversation with, "No baby yet." Like even before she said, "Hello." If I picked up the phone, the first words I heard in her voice should have been, "No baby." Because my suspense should be her first priority in life, right? But tonight I emerged from hiding in a closet due to a tornado warning in our neighborhood, put the kids to bed in the dark because the power was out, and then decided to give my mom a call. Because what else can you do when the power is out besides use your land line? On one o' them archaic CORDED phones, no less. Only then did I find out my mom is waiting in the hospital waiting room for news of the yet-to-occur birth.) I know that she'll probably hate me for saying it, but I'm secretly pleased that Jessica didn't have her baby any sooner. I mean, she went in for her 35 week appointment and was already dilated to 2.5 cm. I believe she was at a 3 just before she went into labor this morning.

Similarly, my best friend Leann is due to have her baby on the 23rd of June. She went in at 35 weeks and was also at 2.5cm. Last I heard, she was at a 3.5.

All I have to say to these women is, "I hate you people."

In case you wanted to know, nothing's really happening with my cervix thus far. No big surprise.

When I went in to be induced 4 days past my due date with Claire, I was what I like to call a "courtesy 1." I believe the exact quote from the doctor was, "Mmm... we'll call it 1 cm." As in what the doctor was really saying was, "Well, at the last few appointments I've had to tell you that you weren't even a 1 yet and I just don't have the heart to tell you that you're still not even a 1 although you're past your due date, so we're going to call it a 1 to make you feel better since it really makes no medical difference if you're 1 or less than that. Either way you are SO not about to go into labor any time soon and we have our work cut out for us 'ripening' your cervix."

With Scott, I think I made it to 1 cm sometime shortly before my due date and when I went in to be induced with him (5 days late that time) I was at 1.5. Yah, still not exactly ready and rarin' to go the second time around. In fact, toward the end of my pregnancy with Scott when I asked my doctor at what point I should go to the hospital if I started having contractions, do you know what she did? She laughed at me. Laughed! She answered my question, but then she told me that she highly doubted I would go into labor on my own.

So I am resigned to the fact that needing to be induced a week early this time means I will DEFINITELY not dilate ahead of time. At least not to any useful extent. I keep telling myself that everyone is different and that's just the way my body rolls (and "rolls" is a pretty good description of both how I look and move these days). But I can't help but be jealous. I mean, my only sister was my biologically best bet for a "labor twin," right? But apparently she doesn't have a lazy cervix, as I like to say in derision of my own anatomy.

Does no one actually deliver past their due date anymore? I want to hear that I'm not a freak of nature. I guess I know a few people who have delivered late. But I bet they all reached their due date dilated to like a 3. Or you know, something larger than 1.

Hmph.

Something Totally Not Repetitive AT ALL

Because who doesn't love even more fuzzy pictures of Kate?



Bear with me guys. The perk of these ultrasound pics is the only thing keeping me sane with all these pointless appointments.

Dote, Dote, Dote...

The umbilical cord was in front of her face, so that's what the deal is with the line-ish thing over the bridge of her nose.

---------------------------------------------------------------

So some of you might be wondering why I am getting all these ultrasounds. No, I have not bribed an ultrasound tech. Kate has a two vessel umbilical cord. It's also called a Single Umbilical Artery (SUA). Normally a baby has two arteries and one vein in the cord, but she only has one artery and one vein. It is associated with some abnormalities, but we seem to be lucky and none have shown up in fairly extensive ultrasound scans. Now that the concern of abnormalities is pretty much over, the only concern is that blood flow might be restricted and she could experience impaired growth or other similar problems. This is what is being checked for by my now weekly ultrasounds. So far, everything looks great though! It is quite common for the one artery to get larger and fully compensate for the missing one, resulting in a perfectly normal pregnancy. So far, that seems to be the case and we just get a lot of peeks at Kate. The other result is that I will be induced about a week early, guaranteeing that I will NOT go almost a week past my due date and then still end up being induced like happened with Claire AND Scott.

Put That Thing Back Where it Came from or So Help Me, SO HELP ME!

My parents came out for a visit awhile ago. We did so much while they were here they completely wore me out! For example, they helped me completely detail the minivan one day and another day my mom whipped up a new Boppy cover for me one afternoon between entertaining my kids and making dinner. And yet we still managed to have tons of fun too. I'll take it.

The best part about my parents visiting is always the food. I think I gained most of my weight for this pregnancy just in the 5 days they were here! I blame the fact that I now weigh as much as I did when I delivered Scott on them. Well, and I guess the holidays didn't help. And the constant eating to combat nausea in the first trimester. Hmmm... so maybe I shouldn't blame them entirely... but anyway. The point is, when they come they bring about half a Trader Joe's store with them. However, cheese doesn't pack as well, so we made a trip to Whole Foods to pick up a nice selection of cheeses (curse you Texas for not having Trader Joe's!!!).

There were some samples of cheeses out for tasting, and the kids love samples. (Who doesn't?) We let them taste the first cheese we came across and they liked it despite it being something more exotic than cheddar, so when we came to the next one we didn't hesitate to give them a taste of that too. Apparently Scott wasn't a big fan of that particular one. But rather than tell us like he usually does, he decided to take care of things all by himself. The adults were all chatting about what cheeses to get when suddenly we were aware of a spitting sound. We looked around to see Scott spitting every last trace of the cheese sample from his mouth back into the sample tray. EEEK! This was something like $10/lb cheese and we had scoop about half the tray of samples into the trash because they had been contaminated by Scott spit and masticated cheese. It was probably $5 in cheese, minimum. I'm just glad the customer next to us at the deli counter was laughing and not chasing us out of the store, pelting us with reusable shopping bags and organic rotten tomatoes.

Ultrasounds R Us

No witty comments. The honest truth is just that I'm shamelessly doting on my unborn child:

By Popular Demand...

Introducing Kate:

24 weeks

(I thought about posting yesterday, but I was worried you might not believe me since it was April Fools' Day.)

These are from the 3D ultrasound awhile ago:

19 weeks

19 weeks

Middle name you ask? Still to be fought over determined...

Yes, We Actually Refer to Her in Conversation as "Fetus"

Baby names were a lot easier the last two times.

Claire was picked as our first girl's name when she was still qualified only to be called "Embryo."

Our first son was dubbed Scott I think before M and I even got married. (It happens to be a family name, so it made it even easier.)

Do you see how both times in the past we had a name to replace the "Fetus" designation as soon as we knew the gender? As soon as we left the 20 week ultrasound, our baby had a name and we started to use it. So it's been really weird this time, knowing now that Fetus is a girl and still only being able to call her "Fetus." I suppose normal people would say something like "the baby" or even a cute nickname like "bump" or "bean." I guess we're just a little bit overly matter of fact about things, but any other name besides Fetus just sounds too cheesy to me. Sentimentality has never been a strong suit for M and me.

I knew this time around we were in for a much harder time since we didn't already have a name "waiting in the wings." It could have been like this last time if Scott had been a girl. In fact, during my pregnancy with Scott we started making a list of girls' names and then abandoned it when we found out we were having a boy. But not before I got a little taste of the impending horror.

M and I do NOT have a terribly similar taste in names. I think the ideal case is for a name to be something of a unique identifier. Isn't that kind of the point? I mean, otherwise why not call us all "man" and "woman"? But since issuing everyone a serial number might be a tad cumbersome, you try to find a unique name. Not unique in the whole world, maybe even not in their whole school, but hopefully at least in their classroom. I don't want it to be a made up name, or a name no one has ever heard of, but I think it ought to be fairly uncommon.

M, on the other hand, thinks a name shouldn't make you stand out. He figures, if everyone else has used a name, it must be a good name. This is particularly problematic given our last name. Imagine the most generic last name of English origins you can think of. Are you imagining it? Okay, now I'd bet good money you are thinking of our last name. I feel like M's taste in names would doom our children to a life of hopeless anonymity, no matter what. If we pick the names he likes, our child could cure cancer and be the first astronaut on Mars and no one would ever remember their name. In fact, no one would probably even notice what they had accomplished.

It's interesting how different our perspectives are given that we both have fairly uncommon first names. Growing up, I LOVED having an uncommon name and I think he hated it. So our naming goal is to find a name that everyone has heard of and is fairly normal, but that not too many people are using right now. It's a tall order and it's a matter of debate how successful we've been thus far.

We've been working on a girl name for this time around for awhile now. We started talking about girl names even before we knew this one was a girl because we were at such an impasse last time before being saved by Scott being a boy. I'm starting to get pretty antsy. I know I still have over 14 weeks left, but I think I would rather die than walk into the hospital unsure of the name I wanted to use. That smacks of "going with your gut." Pshaw! What, do you want to me to name them based on what they "look" like? Then we should name them "Svork" or something because they come out looking like aliens. And how my kids looked as newborns has absolutely NOTHING to do with how they look later anyway. In our house, names are NOT left to some whim of the anesthesia. Around here, picking a baby name is a intensive process that involves spreadsheets and ranking and scoring and graphs to check for positive or negative correlation... Seriously, it's bad, people.

So help us. Spare us poor geeks. Vote in the polls in the sidebar and give us your two cents in the comments. Here's the lowdown:

When we were pregnant with Scott, we had narrowed it down to M's favorite girl name being Helen and mine being Ellen. Not so easy to compromise on. You can't exactly use one for the first name and one for the middle name. To ease the tension, we said we'd just always say her name with a heavy British accent and call her 'Elen. The deadlock continued so we've come up with some other names.

Kate is our top scoring name. We took a rough list of conceivable candidates we compiled together. Then each of us ranked the list. The score is calculated by the sum of the square of the respective ranks. (For example, if M ranks Svork at #2 and I rank it at #20, then the score would be 404.) This system amplifies "dislike." A lower number is better (like golf!). I'm a little concerned with this one about popularity and about the fact that she would be named Kate and not Katherine or anything. We'd technically be naming her a nickname.

The other "name family" that scores well is Lauren or Laura. Lauren has some real popularity issues as well, but there's a bigger problem here. We like the names, but we don't actually say them the same way. (Crazy east coaster husband...grumble grumble)

So what should we do???

I Suppose I Could Just Announce the Gender

Well, hand Claire a bucket of sidewalk chalk because now I do have an announcement to make.

The sidebar has been updated to reflect details of our new cast member, but I'll be nice and list it here for the smart ones who use a feed reader:

Fetus is a girl and is scheduled to debut on 4th of July weekend.

So I Have This "Friend"...

I need your input.

So let's just say, hypothetically, that someone had some news they wanted to share on their blog. In fact, let's just say, hypothetically, that this someone was pregnant. How would you suggest announcing it? Any clever ideas? Hypothetically speaking, of course.