Weekends!

We have been very busy here the past couple of weekends.  Two weekends ago, I went to New York to see my cousin Sara on Saturday and my friend Danielle on Sunday.  I didn't take any photos on Saturday but we went shopping, walked through Central Park, and ate at an excellent Italian Restaurant on the Upper West Side.  I also finally got to meet her boyfriend (he's great!) and hang out in her apartment. The only thing I didn't get to do was see her yarn bombs since they were gone but we did a lot of knitting talk.  

Sunday Danielle and I went to Coney Island for a couple hours which was great.  We walked along the boardwalk, listened to some awesomely bad karaoke, ate a lot of food, and went on two rides.  Luckily we didn't go on the roller coasters, because I was unaware that they are one of the many things pregnant ladies are supposed to abstain from.  The ferris wheel was definitely safe, and the second ride was ok, but I probably wouldn't go on it again pregnant.  Here are some photos from the Wonder Wheel:

This past weekend we painted our bedroom and the den and probably some time next week we'll start painting the nursery.  Friday we did the ceilings and primer in both rooms.  Saturday we finished the bedroom completely and just had to do the second coat of cutting in on the den.  Sunday Paul-John had a shooting match in the morning and afternoon, and I wanted him to do the final touch-ups on the edges just because he is so much better at it than I am.  By Sunday night he was able to do the touch-ups in the den and we put the bedroom back together, but the den is still a little crazy looking.  

Photo below is more color accurate than photo above.  

In baby news, I had my follow-up ultrasound today and they were able to get the view of the heart they needed.  I also found out that my placenta is anterior, which explains why I have been feeling some movement but not a lot.

Halfway

So today I am 20 weeks, or halfway through pregnancy!  In the first couple weeks of my pregnancy, we both definitely felt a sense of urgency of needing to get stuff done, which dwindled once we realized how long nine months really is and because I was a lot more tired during those first three months.  Now that I am in the easy trimester, with more energy and no baby belly yet, I am once again feeling that sense of urgency which I think is slowly starting to rub off on Paul-John.

Over the next three weeks or so we hope to get the majority of the work done upstairs that we will need to do, at least before we start getting baby stuff.  Since we will be combining the den and craft room into one room, we need to figure out what will be staying upstairs and what will be going into the basement.  Next weekend, we will be putting a bunch of stuff from both our bedroom and the den into the craft room so we can paint both rooms.  The following weekend, once everything is put back into their respective rooms and the now nursery will be practically empty, we will paint that room.

I was telling Paul-John that I keep feeling conflicted about doing this.  One of the reasons I think I have put it off until now was definitely because of cost - we will be painting all the trim and ceilings along with the walls because we know if we don't do it now, we never will and we want to do this right.  We both use Mint on our phone to keep track of our bank accounts and it also keeps track of how much you earn and spend in a single month.  While this is helpful because of course it is important to usually earn more than you spend, it can sometimes be misleading because one month is such a small timeframe.  Several months ago we made a list of the major extra expenses we would have throughout the pregnancy and have been specifically setting aside money in savings in order to use it for these expenses, with painting the upstairs being one of them.  So its funny, on the one hand I feel very anxious about making sure we get everything done in time, and on the other hand I want to wait until I feel we can afford it, which probably would be never.

I've also signed up for a childbirth preparation class, infant care class, and breastfeeding class at UCHC and have started to look into getting a doula.  I also finally told another job, which honestly I was kind of nervous about.  I had told SACS a while ago, which was easy, but I was a little more nervous since I was just hired at Lincoln.  However, it doesn't seem to be a big deal so that is one less thing to worry about.

Baby Names

On Monday we had our anatomy ultrasound and we found out that we will be having a baby girl!  Of course, we are both very excited.  Everything else looked good and we got to hear the heartbeat again (153) but there was one view of the heart they needed and weren't able to get, so I'll be going back in three weeks.

Interestingly enough, before the scan we were nearly 100% on the name we had picked out for a girl and had no ideas for a boy.  That has since changed dramatically.  The first possible name was Sophia Theresa.   Theresa after Paul-John's grandmother, or meme, who died last year and to whom he was close.  Personally I didn't actually like the name Theresa (and it turns out neither did Paul-John) but I liked why we chose it.  Then Monday night, when we were driving to our celebratory dinner, Paul-John mentioned that his mom and had suggested Meme's middle name, Adrian.

Paul-John was first hesitant about Adrian because he didn't want everyone to pronounce it like Rocky when they said it.  But considering that it is only a middle name, not to mention the age of her peers, this seems unlikely outside of situations of older adults.  We both like the way Sophia Adrian sounds, and her initials would be SAM which we both like as well.  So once again, we were nearly 100% on a name.

And then today I was reading through a forum on Rav for people due in Nov, and two other people had mentioned using the name Sophia.  That in and of itself wouldn't bother me, but it made me curious so I decided to search how popular a name it is.

It turns out in 2010, Sophia was the 2nd most popular baby name, with Sofia at 26 and Sophie at 59.  This was very unexpected.  We like Sophia mostly for the meaning but also because we thought it was slightly unique.  If not unique, maybe common, but certainly not the second most popular name given to baby girls last year.  So now we are reconsidering the first name.  At this point I have no idea if we'll keep it or change it, but luckily we have some time to figure it out!

If you have a lot of time you feel like wasting on the internet, I highly recommend looking stuff up here.  For instance, it is interesting that the number of babies with the most common names have been decreasing.  For example, in 1950 the most popular female baby name was Linda with 80,408 babies.  In 2010, the number of Sophia, Sofia, and Sophie combined was only 31,139.