"What's in a name?"

Favorite boy's names: Joshua, Noble, Gray, Walker, Adams, James, Scott, Wynne, Arthur, Addison

Favorite girls' names: Adair, Adelle, Lucia, Piper, Aven, Emory, Margo, Addison, Cora, Gloria, Olivia, Libby, Caroline, Abigail

Why we love these names: Most of them are family names

How we searched for names: sifting through our babynames.com and searching by our favorite first letters, looking at our family history, including MFTW's genealogy chart.

How we chose our name: We had picked a boy name that JR had contributed the first name to and I had contributed the middle name to. When we told JR's mom what we were thinking, she suggested a different first name (one that we had strongly considered, but not in this combination) and we loved it immediately. JR sealed the deal when he came up with the perfect nickname. So it was settled in the Holland-East kitchen in Tulsa, Oklahoma on February 18, 2011.


We were so pleased with this boy name and couldn't ever come up with a girl name that felt as "perfect" to us as our boy name did. I was hoping this was a sign that we would have a boy! Fortunately, when the doctor told us we were expecting a little boy, we got to call him by name right away: Arthur Scott Holland ("Ash" for short, from his initials).


Arthur is JR's maternal grandfather's middle name and Scott is my father's first name. I hoped that our baby name would have some weighty, consequential name like "God's gift to all the world" but when I looked up the meanings I found that Arthur means "bear" and Scott means "Person from Scotland." So...our little bear from Scotland is all we have for now, but I'll do some more research and maybe little Ash will define his own name for us. More importantly, we hope that the significance of Ash's name will be derived from the legacy that Robert Arthur Borlase and Scott Templeton Walker have left for him to follow.


Our first gift with Arthur's name: thanks, Mom

Pink or Blue?

My partner and I decided we did want to know the baby's sex because: I really felt like I needed to "be prepared." I wanted to prepare myself mentally for the challenges that a boy or girl would bring. I wanted to be able to do my favorite thing in the world, decorate the nursery in gender-appropriate colors. I wanted to be settled on a name ahead of time. At some point, we would love to get to experience the surprise of not finding out the sex, but not for this go around.

I predicted the sex to be: a girl. Virtually everyone thought it was a girl and lots of old wives' tales predicted a girl too.



The experience: Instead of waiting until our 20 week ultrasound to find out the sex, we paid a little extra to have an extra ultrasound at 16 weeks and find out a month early. I counted down the days until Friday, March 25 and then counted down the hours until 3:00 p.m.


We had the joy of inviting some loved ones to be with us for this appointment, so I left work and headed the doctor's office to meet my mom, dad, brother and sister-in-law there. JR followed me by a few minutes, arriving with our neighbors/friends, Hillary and Kevin. JR's mom made an appearance via cell phone, right as she was about to take off on a flight out of Oklahoma at the time of our appointment.


The office was quiet, because they do these early ultrasounds after regular business hours, but there was another couple in the waiting room with us. Even though the doctor's office had told us that could invite people to come with us for this appointment, I called just to make sure it was okay to bring a group of 8! It was really fun to have our group there to wait and pass the time with us and I felt relieved to see a group come out of their ultrasound that had squeezed an entourage into the ultrasound room with them too.


They finally called us around 3:30 p.m. and we all filed into the room and met our stenographer/ultrasound tech, Joe. (Incidentally, Joe had done an ultrasound on my mom a number of years back!). Everyone crowded around to get a view of the monitor and I stuffed a big plasticy drop cloth into my jeans while Joe put the goop on my belly. As always, as soon as I saw the baby shape and begged Joe to know if he/she was "okay" I let out a sigh of relief. We got to look at the baby's profile and hear the heartbeat again. FINALLY, he said "well are you guys ready to know now?" and after an emphatic yes he said "say 'hi' to your little.......*long pause*......your little boy!" Lot's of clapping and exclamations and screams followed. Then Joe gave us a little tour of my uterus, showing us a head-on shot of the baby, a little foot with toes, an elbow and arm, his boy parts, listened to the heartbeat and giving us some factual information about the baby's developmental thus far. We all predicted it was a girl, so I was really prepared to hear him say "girl" and that pause before he uttered "boy" seemed like it was in slow-motion. Obviously, we would have loved to have a boy or a girl, but I really did feel relieved to hear it was what we had hoped for!


Back in the waiting room, Jenni gave us our first set of boy onesies.

Then we all headed to The Usual to celebrate! Unfortunately, we were there 20 minutes before opening, so the boys went to Yucatan for tacos, I got a coconut limeade from Spiral Diner (best drink ever), and the Golls were nice enough to drive back to our house and wait to meet someone from the car dealer dropping off our newly fixed Murano. We all reunited at The Usual for celebratory drinks before heading to an early dinner and the beginning of the Love & Respect marriage conference.

It was so worth it to find out the sex early and to share the experience with our family. Thank you all for being there with us!


Unfortunately the ultrasound photos are a bit fuzzy from the scan, but enjoy them and the other photos below:

Dr. Benz' office

JR and Wynne waiting

My brother and me waiting

The Golls waiting

Not the most flattering picture...

Joe, our stenographer

Proud future parents

Mom and me at The Usual

Looking Back at the First Trimester

My first trimester weight: 107 lbs

When I first started to show: not this trimester

Biggest change in my body: lots of trips to the ladies' room

Most significant change in my life: eating every few hours so my stomach stayed settled


What I did to stay healthy: prenatals of the gummy variety, no more piping hot baths

The hardest thing to get used to: having no control over what is happening in my body

Most memorable/emotional moment: seeing the heartbeat on our first sonogram

My favorite part about being a new pregnant mom: dreaming about the future

Reflections on the first trimester: Overall, I had a very, very easy trimester. With the exception of some cystic pain in the first couple months, I felt great and only experienced mild symptoms and no morning sickness whatsoever. Sometimes, I almost wished I had some additional symptoms just so I could make sure it was all really happening! I can only hope the pregnancy continues this smoothly. Emotionally, it was a bit of a roller coaster. There were days that were all smiling and staring at sonogram pictures, but also nights that were spent anxiously awake worrying about having a healthy baby and being able to provide for him or her. I am really looking forward to getting out of this trimester and being in a "safer" place for the pregnancy and getting to focus on the fun, tangible things like buying furniture, decorating the nursery, registering, finding infant care, etc.

14 Week Appointment

March 14, 2011

 

Today we visited Dr. Benz for our third appointment. I'm 14 weeks completed and 2 days into the 15th week.

Our first two appointments centered around lab work and sonograms, so I didn't know what to expect at this routine check-up. Except for the 20 week and 36 week sonograms, which are medically necessary, and a few other tests, the rest of our appointments should go like like today's: 1) urine sample 2) weight and blood pressure test 3) listen to baby's heartbeat 4) visit with doctor

Little One's heartbeat was a strong 161 bpm. I held my breath at first because the nurse took awhile to find it with the doppler and we could only hear mine. I started to well up, but when she moved it over to my left side we heard the quick goosh goosh of the baby. Whew!

This is our second old wives' tale to predict a girl (heart beats over 140 = a girl, they say). Fortunately, we won't have to rely on superstition much longer because we scheduled our sex determination appointment! JR is consenting to let us do the elective 4D ultrasound so we can find out the sex at 16 weeks instead of waiting until our next routine sonogram at 20 weeks.

So, less than two weeks away, on Friday, March 25 at 3:00 p.m. we will find out if our Little One is a boy or girl and get to start using gender-appropriate pronouns instead of calling it "IT" all the time! Yay!

In other news, I ordered our crib today and taped off tenative placement of all the nursery furniture. :-)

First Panic Attack

February 5, 2011

 

I flipped out after reading a baby magazine (published by Babies ‘R’ Us) about all of the baby gear we’re going to “have to” buy and store. "The 5 types of strollers you and your baby need" it says! A new car seat for every stage? A jumper, a bouncer, a swing, an entertainment center.

“I don’t know anything about babies!” I wailed. “I didn’t even know there were three kinds of bottle nipples with different rates of flow for different ages,” the sobbing continued.

JR assured me that we would learn all the important things along the way and that we most certainly did not need 5 strollers.

Unexpected First Trimester things

Weird cravings: Krispy Kreme and Curly Fries

Weird cravings fulfilled: JR brought home biscuits and gravy from Central Market AND donut holes from Dales (without me asking)

 

Weird symptoms: Heightened sense of smell - I had to take out all the air fresheners in the house because they were making me feel sick). hyper-sensitive gag reflex - I gagged just thinking about certain foods in the first trimester and can still barely brush my teeth without lurching. Lower abdominal pain from a cyst that eventually cleared up.

More from our second appointment...

Just wanted to share some live-action video of our little Valentine!