It seems horrible to say I'm sorry, but having had a similar situation (and knowing you were hoping for one) I can completely understand the freaking out.
You have my best wishes - I'm sending strong, healthy twin vibes your way.
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Jon and Kate, Brinestone. And kudos to them for wanting to keep all the babies when they were told they really ought to reduce.
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(((Mrs. M))) I hadn't known you were pregnant. That's what I get for sulking in the "not pregnant, wish I were, I just turned 38, and no I don't want to talk about it" thread that exists only in my head. 2 is less than 3. Just remember that.
In summary, I'm not pregnant because I get really bad hormonal depressions, and my husband worries a lot about me. So I just try and be grateful for the three little beauties I have.
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
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Thanks for the prayers and good wishes, y'all. I'm starting to adjust to the idea. I'll feel better when I talk to my OB. She wasn't in on Friday and, boy, does she have a surprise waiting for her. I think she's going to want to do my cerclage in the next couple of weeks.
The ultrasound was very different than the ones when I was pregnant with Aerin. For one, Aerin was there and she was acting like a little pill b/c she missed her nap. And this time we were hoping for just 1 baby, whereas last time we thought multiples would be neat. The ultrasound tech was so nice. She told us that she was going to visualize and record before she explained what we were looking at. There was about 5-10 minutes of silence while we all looked at the screens. Now, I've had literally dozens of ultrasounds - I know how to read one by now. I saw both sacs immediately. Andrew says that he didn't know b/c he wasn't sure what he was looking at. This was the extent of my thoughts, "Oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no..."
We also only have 1 name picked out for girls, which is bothering me because I'm compulsive like that.
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I have been a lot happier since we found one boy's name we can both agree on - not that it will necessarily be the one, but before we picked it, we couldn't agree at all.
I was having visions of "Baby Boy E__" for months.
(Not that we know it's a boy - but I figured, as long as we didn't have any name we could agree on, it would be, just to make things difficult.)
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quote:Originally posted by dkw: We still don't have a boy's name, and we're pretty sure we're having a boy. Pretty soon.
At least you've been through the process once, so you know you theoretically can agree on a name.
I was despairing that I would ever find a name that I liked and Tony could stand. He didn't like my more... adventurous choices (I still think Thaddeus is a great name) and 6 years of teaching at a boy's high school means he has a lot of vetoes based on past association.
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First time through was easy -- we decided right away that a boy would be first name after Bob's father and middle name after my father. A girl would be firstname after my maternal grandmother, middle name after his maternal grandmother (since both our mothers are still alive and we don't want to use a first name that's still in circulation in the immediate family).
Unfortunately, if we push back another generation for boy's names we start running into names like Vernon and Emil, which neither of us care for, or Theodore, which I don't mind but Bob vetoed. We have no further male family names that we both like that aren't already in use by siblings or sibling's kids.
We have had some conversations about how we could "reverse theme" John's name based on what we name a second boy. We could go with "George Ringo," "Luke Timothy," or "Benedict," each of which would give a different flavor to "John Paul."
None of those are in serious consideration, however.
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For a boy, we were torn between Peter Alexander and Samuel. The problem with Peter Alexander is my husband hates the name Peter for a son (he conceded because it is in memory of someone) and so we would basically just be calling the kid Alexander. But that puts the name at just the right length, without including his Chinese middle name (the Chinese side just view that as the name and ignore the American first name). Add that and it is just too long a name for the poor guy.
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George Richard or Richard George is really not that bad. Neither is Luke Timothy or Timothy Luke.
I am not a big fan of Theodore, but it does have nicknames that can be cute. I don't like Sebastian much. Timothy and Nathaniel are both nice.
scholarette, we have plans to someday have an Alex whose middle name would be Alexander. See, we don't want an Alexander for a first name with our last name. So we are planning on John Alexander, and call him Alex. If we ever get to three boys, that is... (It's the third boy's name we have picked out.)
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We can't have Timothy because of Tony's last name. I do actually agree with him on that one.
Sebastian I like because of the Shakespearean element - given my name, and given the dearth of any other good boys names in most of Shakespeare's works. (Iago, anyone?)
[Edit - Oh, and Sebastian would be Seb, and Theodore would be Teddy. Not that it's actually going to happen.]
Posts: 4393 | Registered: Aug 2003
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I have a little bit of a thing against naming the kid something that isn't what we intend to call him. It doesn't bother me on other people's kids, but I just don't think I could do it myself. So the availability of cute nicknames doesn't help.
In other news -- I'll be 38 weeks tomorrow and John was born at exactly 38 weeks. Which means I'm going to start feeling "overdue" soon even though my due date is still half a month away.
<--- grouchy pregnant woman.
On the plus side, I'm off work as of yesterday and we still have a nanny for this week -- I can run some errands and maybe get some things done around the house. Posts: 9866 | Registered: Apr 2002
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quote:I also like Sebastian, but that has been vetoed. And Timothy. And Nathaniel.
Such lovely taste you have, imogen! Can't imagine what's wrong with Tony, though. (We chose Nathaniel, meaning I chose it and my husband agreed at the last minute, when I was on mag and freaking out about all the stuff we didn't have ready yet. Smart man. I let him choose the middle name.)
dkw, just think of all the stuff you'll be able to get done if you go to 40 weeks! Posts: 834 | Registered: Jun 2005
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quote:Originally posted by dkw: I have a little bit of a thing against naming the kid something that isn't what we intend to call him. It doesn't bother me on other people's kids, but I just don't think I could do it myself. So the availability of cute nicknames doesn't help.
I like the idea of having a nickname for childhood, but a more 'grown up' name the kid could switch to when they got older (if they so chose).
I imagine whatever we call our child, we will ourselves use both nickname and full name.
Hang in there dkw!
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I am a baby name addict, so I try to stuff as many names in there as I can.
My oldest daughter is called Buffy, a nickname we picked out before we picked her actual first name, which also starts with a B.
My kids all get a Japanese name, too, so we try to give each kid an exotic name, and a "normal" name. Of course, "normal" is a moving target.
Our latest son is named after a famous 17th century samurai (Musashi), but we call him Moose. It's easier on the gaijin that way. ("What's his name again? Mufasa? Mohammed?") And fits his personality perfectly.
I like exotic names, and like having my kids stand out (I'm sure they'll hate me for it) so I usually give them the exotic name as the first name, and the normal name in the middle.
A lot of people go by their middle names, so it's there just-in-case. I like that more than having a really cool name languish in the shadow of the first name, never getting heard or seen.
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I, on the other hand, tend to put the unique name in the middle if it's there at all. Like Bridey-- her middle name is Niamh. I am just not going to inflict a lifetime of mispronunciation on my child (though I don't fault you for doing so.) Different priorities. It's not like it NEVER gets used, either-- I tend to sing-song their full name when they're not listening... So right now, seeing as she's two, people hear her middle name a LOT... Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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We went with Bronwen for our oldest. Which is marginally more pronounceable than her Japanese middle name.
One of our daughters is named Sakura, which I had avoided for my other two girls thinking that Americans would massacre it, and dislike it. But I've had the opposite experience--people love how different it is.
It also depends on what culture you're taking names from.
I think Japanese is pretty easy--once you know how the consanants sound in English, you just put equal stress on most syllables and you're 90% there--
but Celtic/Gaelic is VERY tricky. So I see why you would decide to put it in the #2 slot.
When we were considering Niamh, we were going to spell it Niav, or Neve, in anticipation of such problems.
BTW--I LOVE the name Bridey!
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Sachiko- do your kids look Japanese? That is one thing with my baby- her middle and last name are Chinese but she doesn't look at all Chinese (her daddy doesn't either, but her grandpa who currently lives in Hong Kong, looks very clearly Chinese). We get a lot of questions about her name and why we would pick a Chinese name.
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So I do end up explaining a lot, "I'm part Japanese, they all have a Japanese name".
One of my daughters has a Hawaiian name, too, and that's harder to explain. It's easy to quickly say, "We're part Japanese"; it's another to say "It's Hawaiian, and, um, I just liked it."
My daughter Sakura has fair skin and blonde hair. People love her name. We've nicknamed her Suki and I have gotten nothing but compliments.
I used to fear names that were too weird, but the feedback here in rural Western American is 95% positive.
I have a friend whose kids are named Megan, Michael, Colin, except she spells them Maeghan, Mykaul, and Kaulyn. IMAO, prounouncing unfamiliar names is preferable to having to give alternate spellings to otherwise familiar names. Just MY arrogant opinion, though.
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Bridey is an Irish nickname for Bridget (which is her first name.) Bridgets in Ireland quite often ended up being called Bride or Bridey until the middle of the last century, and occasionally still do. We thought Bridget Niamh just had the ring to it, and chose it to honor both a deceased childhood friend of mine and my Irish heritage (my mom went to Ireland and people kept stopping to ask her directions, upon which she would have to explain that she was American and had never been there before!) (I wanted Brigid, but my husband vetoed it-- he said she'd get "Frigid Brigid." So instead she gets "Bridget the M*****", which is worse because I find that word horribly offensive. Anyway...)
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Oh, and I think Sakura is a very pretty name (if she's pink and white it's perfect! It both describes her and honors her heritage.) And I love the nickname Suki, though if I saw a little blonde girl named Suki I would probably assume Scandinavian or maybe Slavic before Japanese! (I had a friend in elementary school whose family was Finnish. Her name was Suuvi. I kind of like that as a future middle name candidate... Since I'm sure we'll run through the girls' names we have picked out and need more. )
I don't have a problem with choosing (traditional in SOME culture) names just because you like them. I do agree that it is kind of annoying to purposefully mis-spell names just to be "unique." I'm on the fence with made-up names. If they have a definite meaning (like a combination of the parents' names) and sound good and are not strangely spelled or pronounced, I'm generally pretty okay with them. But if they are chosen just to be unique (or possibly bizarre), that just seems kind of cruel to me.
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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My parents got allergy shots from an Irish emigrant namedBridie, and I've love it ever since.
I have considered in passing Danu for a girl, and then decided that, like Amaterasu, maybe I need to leave the goddess names be.
I love Finnish names too. We have Welsh, English, Hawaiian and Japanese; I want some names from ScandyLand next, and am considering Kaarina for a girl.
I have this made-up name that I've been on the fence about, which I am reluctant to post, because I like it rather a lot and have gotten very mixed reviews of it.
We all have names we consider normal or not abusively odd, and then names that are "just mean". A lot of people, especially older folks, think that my son Musashi's name is "just mean". There have been a few strangers at the hospital, visiting teachers, etc. who did NOT approve.
Funny, but it seems like people who don't approve of a lot of baby names, and people who are willing to be rude, are often the same people. Hee.
I've met like 3 or 4 other Japanese moms who have daughters names Sakura. It's like the Japanese version of Emily; #1 in Japan in 2000.
So that's our baby name niche--we pick conventional, top 10 names from other countries.
So while I raise my eyebrows at someone naming their daughter Keightlaynn instead of Caitlen....they probably could defend themselves by pointing out that at least their kids' names SOUND normal. True. My poor kids.
(not that you asked)
(I did warn you that I'm obsessed with baby naming)
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So am I! Do you read the Baby Name Wizard blog? And see, I have no problem with "top 10 in other countries." At least it's a name SOMEWHERE. I guess I'm like the government of Sweden. Though I didn't think their decision to disallow the parents to name their child what they wished was right, I also did NOT think Metallica was a good name for a baby girl...
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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quote:Originally posted by ketchupqueen: (I wanted Brigid, but my husband vetoed it-- he said she'd get "Frigid Brigid." So instead she gets "Bridget the M*****", which is worse because I find that word horribly offensive. Anyway...)
A friend of mine in elementary school was named Bridgid. (With that spelling.) I don't remember anyone making fun of her name.
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Replace "Br" with "M" and you will get the word. And yes, it's an offensive term in most contexts. Search that word with my screenname and you'll find quite a few times I've talked about it... I don't want to completely derail this thread yet again. Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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I used to want to give a daughter the middle name Arachne. I think I'm over that.
As a spinner and a weaver, it would be really cool, the fact that the girl of the myth killed herself, less so.
Posts: 5362 | Registered: Apr 2004
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KQ--Yeah, I've been to the Baby Name Wizard Blog quite a few times before. I enjoyed the book a lot! Regular names, especially Anglo ones, with all their variations to pad the book--those baby name books are a dime a dozen. But the Baby Name Wizard system is really innovative, IMAO.
I've always wanted to take up spinning, weaving, dying, etc., and all the more so since I found out that a lot of my Japanese family used to silk-farm up in the mountains. Some of my favorite Japanese names include Ayako ("child of silk") and Shiori ("poem-weaver").
I'm thinking about putting another boy name on my short list: Asa. I always avoided it before, figgering that my kids
(who are homeschooled but that doesn't stop dumb grownups and relatives from teasing them *nod towards KQ*)
would be called "A**-a" or something. But the Asa I know from church is a really popular 17 yo guy, who loves his name, and everyone else apparently likes it, including his wrestling coach, who apparently just named his own baby son Asa, partly because he likes this kid so much.
Breyerchic, what about using Niobe?
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I love the name Asa. And Ayako and Shiori are both beautiful. Niobe is pretty, too...
I had a friend in middle school named Ariadne. The fact that it's difficult to pronounce didn't seem to give her much trouble by that point, though she confided that it had been hard to deal with when she was smaller.
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Ariadne--which is why I'm a fan of giving kids a cutesy easy nickname when they're little, and letting them decide when they want to use the Big Name.
If I had a little Ariadne, we'd probably end up calling her Danny or something.
No one could pronounce "Bronwen" until a year or two ago, so it was handy that we called her Buffy instead.
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My great-great grandfather, the last samurai in my line, had plum orchards, and when they were in blossom he would invite people over to picnic under the trees (it must have been pretty cold; plums blossom in late winter) and write poems.
So I thought I'd combine Shiori (poem weaver) with Ume (plum blossom). Shioriume.
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Mmm. It's a bit long for me, and unpronouncable. That is, I can pronounce Shiori, and I can pronounce Ume, but Shioriume is a bit much. And while Ume is an okay name, I don't like it nearly as much as Shiori. I'd tend to like Ume as a middle name more.
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I was thinking that if I was so unwise as to actually combine Shioriume, then I would relegate it to the middle name slot.
I'm fairly intrepid as a namer, but I like to think I'm not THAT dumb.
I love both, and I'm always looking at naming from a scarcity standpoint, which adds to the sense of desperation: "But what if we never have another daughter? We need to use ALL the good names!"
Which brings me to another naming issue: I've been considering giving multiple middle names to my kids. It's certainly not the Japanese way to do it, and I know the more anal people at the Social Security office aren't too happy about it, but I meet more and more people who get away with it.
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I like Shiori, my husband likes Ume. My husband and my daughter both have two part middle names, though each part is only one syllable. They don't have hyphens which upsets people. When I got married, I made my maiden name into a second middle name (again no hyphen- we don't like hyphens). People get confused but they deal.
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Okay, this is getting ridiculous. I am now sleeping 14 hours a day (there's a bed in our upstairs playroom, thank goodness). I get up to pee 3 times each night. I have already lost 4 pounds, which I'm not sure is from not being able to eat much from the nausea or from the OHSS fluid leaving my body. I still feel puffy and bloated, so I think it's the nausea. I really don't know what I'm going to do when Aerin starts speech therapy on top of gym and swimming. Then there's summer camp.
The pain and nausea are starting to get to me. I know the pain is from the OHSS, but it still scares me. I can't relax and I'm too tired to relieve stress the way I usually do (cleaning). I'm worried that the babies aren't getting enough nutrition. I'm going to talk to my doctor about Ensure shakes or something like that. I want big, fat babies, but I don't think that's in the cards for me, so I'll settle for medium-sized babies.
We've pretty much settled on Camille and Athena for girls. Our boy names are William and Sean Henry. We have the Hebrew names picked out, too, but we don't share those until after the bris and/or naming.
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(((hugs))) for Mrs.M. Poor thing. I remember those days, and not fondly... Those are all very nice names.
Sachiko, you can give more than one middle name (a trend that is gaining more and more acceptance, though it has always been done in many Spanish speaking countries and some others.) That's what I'd do if I wanted to use both, I guess, though I like Shiori so much I might just give her that for a first name and either make Shiori Ume her whole name, or make it Shiori Umi (second middle) if you wanted her to have an "anglo" option in there.
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Sachiko, how do you pronounce Bronwen? I assumed it was straightforward, but you said people didn't know how until recently.
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My daughter has two middle names. Her name is Eliza Nicole Ananda M. I really wanted to use Ananda since I was a teenager. It is a sanskrit name and it means the joy without which the world would cease to exist. I fell in love with the meaning and wanted to use it as a middle name. Then my husband and I got really attached to the name Eliza. However, I didn't like Eliza Ananda together. So, our plans were to name her Eliza Nicole and save Ananda for later. Then I met my baby and knew I had to use Ananda. Hence, two middle names. No one gave me any grief about it. I think of Ananda as more a private message from mommy and daddy and if she wants to simply use Eliza Nicole publicly that is fine with me.
Posts: 416 | Registered: May 2005
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My parents gave me three middle names when I was born, and somehow got away with it with Social Security. However, when I went to get a new card after getting married, they claimed that their computers wouldn't allow that many characters in a middle name. So I dropped the one that I had never liked, anyway. I am so not a Louise.
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