Heads Down, Thumbs Up

Holy Cramoley, did you people see that the Peanut's Progress ticker on our website says Peanut is now the size of a watermelon??  Good Lord.  Okay, taking a deep breath...

We are now officially under two months until the due date (Sept 21)!  We went to our OB/GYN appointment this week and all continues to be well.  My blood pressure is still 100/60, my weight is now 66.7 kilos (it just sounds impressive in kilos I think, but that is about 147 pounds), but the big news is that Peanut's head is down and his/her space is probably cramped enough that it will stay that way (or at least that is our hope).  Woohoo!  The funny thing is, I feel most of the "kicking" down where I now know Peanut's head is.  Does that mean I already have a head banger on my hands??

At any rate, when we were in her office Dra. Lucia said that I was her best patient (leaving us to wonder just how many best patients one can have...but I digress).  It was just comforting to hear that things were still going well, especially after our trip to Urabá.  There is a lot more to write about that trip (and it will come, both here and on Called to Colombia), but in short I will say that it was challenging.  I love that area of Colombia, and in many ways it is my favorite presbytery, but the church there is more rural and much more impoverished.  Folks offered us remarkable hospitality (and loved talking about "Maní" - Peanut in Spanish), but at every turn we were surreptitiously passing by the kitchen to see if the juice was being made with purified water or finding things to put my feet up on so they would not swell so much with the heat.  Coming back to Barranquilla to hear Peanut's regular 140 beat heart and to hear that whatever aches and pains I was feeling seemed perfectly normal was very good to hear.

I am now back in Barranquilla to stay until Peanut makes her/his debut.  Feet are up.  Fan is on.  Life is good.

Exploring our Options

This post could be about a lot of things - most of them options that seem to be available in the United States but not so much here (where/how you want to give birth, quick and easy but healthy eating, infant car seats, etc) - but nothing so heavy as that this go around.  It's back to names...

I mentioned before that names are tough, and we have some extra requirements that make the decision a little more challenging, but there are some names that I can rule out no matter where I live.  The unfortunate thing is that most of them show up when you look up my name on Baby Center.

Now, there are a ton of pregnancy-related web sites out there.  I mean, a ton.  So pretty early on we just picked one and have stuck with it.  Baby Center sends out emails several times a week with various updates.  Every Thursday it tells me I have begun a new week and talks about Peanut's size and development.  Other days it is information about healthy recipes or pre-natal testing or...baby names.

As it turns out, I don't care what names Jamie Lynn Spears is considering, nor am I likely to look to the movie Twilight for naming inspiration.  However, I thought the "Baby Name Explorer" looked interesting, so I put on my explorer hat and went to check it out.  The deal is, you put a name in their name finder and then you can look for sibling names (because of course you want to coordinate your children's names as you do their outfits...), or you can look up "suggested names."  I have no idea where these suggestions are coming from, but I thought it would be fun to see what came up when I put my own name in the database.  You know, just for a lark. 

That was wrong.

In case you are curious, or you really wanted to name your next child Mamie but you felt it too embarrassing an homage (it's not...), these are some of the other options the Baby Name Explorer suggests that someone who was considering the name Mamie might also like (in no particular order, too hard to choose from the bounty...):

Hattie 

Queenie (I didn't think middle school could get worse, but I think this would do it)

Mabel

Maeve  (substitute teacher nightmare)

Pippa

Prudence (seriously?)

Maisie

Magnolia (oh sure...)

Mathilde

Pepper (not Salt?)

Pearl

Clementine (oh my darlin'...)

Oh, and in case you were wondering, Mamie ranks 5,894 on the list of popular names for Baby Center.  I'm sure 2010 will bounce me into the top 10.

At any rate, feel free to do your own exploring, but don't say you were not warned. 

¿Niño o Niña?

So Mamie has mentioned that it is strange, very strange, to not want to know the sex of our baby here.  I'm currently back in Bogotá, and with the great chance to see folks from the church up here, everyone dutifully asks about Mamie, and the bebé.  I think five people just today asked me if we now knew if we were having a boy or girl. Still, alas, we don't.

But that doesn't stop the guessing.  So for your viewing pleasure, here is one way to determine if we are having a ¿Niño o Niña? - boy or a girl.  In less than two months, we'll be able to tell you its accuracy...

Nino o Nina from Richard Williams on Vimeo.

Abuelitas Gone Wild

Well, this past week we had a visit from the abuelitas.  Both Kit and Margaret came at the same time (on the same flight, wearing the same color shirt and pants even!), and they each brought two suitcases and big carry-on bags.  We had asked each of them to bring a few things, but nothing that we thought would require too much space.  Of course what we asked for had only the slightest relationship to what all came down...

Yup, this is what abuelitas gone wild looks like.  I suppose that given the fact that my dog gained something in the realm of 10-15 pounds in only 5 months with my mother the slightly grandiose tendencies of my mother could have been predicted, but combine she and Margaret together and it looked like the 0-3 section of Babies-R-Us had decided to set up a branch in Barranquilla.  Given that none of these items includes booties, little sweaters, socks, or any stitch of extra clothing for warmth, the sheer magnitude of items is all the more impressive.  And who would have thunk that a baby bouncer chair could fit in a suitcase?  Or that my mother-in-law and my mother would have brought down virtually the same one...?

Who knew this could all fit in a suitcase? from Richard Williams on Vimeo.

We are very grateful for such great gifts and such great grandmothers.  We look forward to when they come back in September/October to get to know Peanut and help him/her try on all these cool clothes.  And we know they'll be back because, well, the shirt says it all!

Barriga Benefits

In Colombia one's belly is called your "barriga" (bah-REE-gah).  Some days I get asked how the baby is doing (a question I rarely know how to answer), but other days I just get comments on how my barriga is growing.  There still isn't a lot to look at.  I continue to wait for the day in which it will "pop" because most folks do not believe that I am five and a half months pregnant right now.  I keep assuring them that the sonogram has clearly shown two arms, two legs, a head - generally all the right parts - but they still look at me a little sideways and wonder whether I really know how to count.

However, I definitely do have a slightly more noticeable belly than before (though one that many in the States would still fear to take note of on the off-chance I am not actually pregnant), and having that belly clearly has its benefits.  Here, with no trouble at all, I can skip metal detectors (at the airport for instance) with one word "embarazada" (em-bar-ah-SAH-dah - or pregnant).  Two days ago in Bogotá I needed to use the restroom in a bookstore that has staff-only bathrooms.  However after asking a clerk and motioning ever so slightly to the barriga, I got a quick nod as she scurried off for the key.  If I am tired, I get an automatic get-out-of-whatever-free card, and if there is an extra serving of just about anything then it is offered to me first (like it...or not...).

Though nothing to shout about, we will now offer you what you have been clambering for...belly shots. 

From Collages

Happy now?  :)