Pregnancy FAQ 2

Glad you liked the answers yesterday. I love that you people are so nosy. Here's more to quench your thirst.


What do your IRL friends think? 
My two closest friends had two totally different responses. When I told Honor (she of the canceled St. Kitts trip), she was stunned into silence for about a tenth of a second and then yelled, "WHAT? WHAT?? WHAT?!" She was shocked and thrilled (except about the trip cancellation).


When I told Lisa, she said, "Oh, I'm not surprised at all." As if I'd just said, "I haven't watered my plants in six months and they all died."


And I can only imagine that all of you guys had reactions similar to one or the other of them. Very little middle ground when one announces a pregnancy, I suppose.


Do you have names picked out?
We learned early on with our first pregnancy that it was completely unproductive to discuss names before we knew the baby's gender. All it did was lead to arguments. Would you like to know why? Because -- AND I AM NOT EVEN KIDDING -- Grayson wanted to name Nathaniel "Ignatio" or "Tyrique." Internet. Can you believe we are still married?


How are you going to arrange bedrooms?
Great question. I THINK we're going to move Jake into the big boys' current room with Nick, and then move Nathaniel into the current guest room. Each room has a queen-size bed, so when we have out-of-town guests, the kids can "camp out" in sleeping bags or on air mattresses somewhere.


Only problem now is, Grayson's been sleeping in the guest room for months. (Have I mentioned this here? I can't remember. I'll explain.) Clearly you're not about to jump to the conclusion that we're having marital problems, since he just knocked me up. No. What happened was that I started snoring --  in a quite delicate yet unrelenting sort of way -- last May. And Grayson wasn't able to sleep through it, so he tested out sleeping in the guest room. And here we are about nine months later, and it's still that way.


Now, we've slept in the same bed plenty of times along the way, mainly on vacation, over the holidays and anytime my family has visited overnight. But then I'VE been the one who hasn't slept well, because I'm ultra-sensitive to waking him up, so I just tossed and turned all night. And I will be the FIRST to say that it's POSSIBLE that I've become spoiled by having a king-size bed all to myself for the better part of a year. Sue me.


GOOD LORD WILL I SHUT UP AND MOVE ON? Yes. Sorry. But all that to say, we may still have some kinks to work out with the bedroom situation. And possibly also with my sinuses.



How are you feeling?
Crummy, thanks. But yesterday I got my life-saving Zofran prescription, and hopefully taking it will help some. With previous pregnancies, I've thrown up so much that I ended up with esophageal tears and -- in the worst 24 hours of my life -- had hallucinations in the middle of the night from being so dehydrated.

I was sitting in the bed, wide awake, batting my arms around in the air trying to knock all the black flying monkeys away from my head. So Grayson called the OB, who sent us to the ER, and I got four units of IV fluids before I felt human again. ANYTHING to prevent a repeat occurrence of that scenario is welcome in my book. Including but not limited to very strong drugs.


Do you secretly want a girl?
No. I secretly want a healthy, typical baby. If you're anything like me, you are constantly made aware -- via Facebook, blogs, Twitter, church e-mails, etc. -- of babies who are born with so many different life-threatening illnesses, diseases and abnormalities. I feel like I hear of a new baby or family to pray for in these devastating situations almost every day.


So it's my fervent prayer that the Lord will bless us with a child as healthy and perfect as our other children have been. Whether it's a boy or a girl doesn't matter. Although another boy would be great.


Any more? Are you done?
I feel like I can quite confidently say that this time, we will be done. Something will be clipped, snipped or tied off. This baby will be the foh-fana to our banana, the period on the end of our sentence. I'm SO glad it's coming, but I also want to feel confident in our ability to parent all of our children well, and I think if we went for a fifth, we might experience the Law of Diminishing Returns in that department.



I have friends who are outstanding parents to five, six and seven children. I do not believe I will find myself among that elite group. So this one will be it ... and he or she will be showered with love ... and Legos, Star Wars ships and loose DVDs ... and will probably also receive the occasional tap on the forehead from a Harry Potter wand. One thing's for sure: it won't be boring.