What's New?

Since I've sucked at blogging lately I have a lot of updating to do. So here we go!

I've been dead tired. No, not just a little bit tired! I'm talking Rip Van Winkle tired! Luckily I work at home. It's very easy to take a nap in the afternoon when I find it impossible to keep my eyes open. Every night I wake up to pee about three times on average. I also haven't been able to find a comfortable position to sleep in. I finally realized that I needed more pillows. I already have my Snoogle pregnancy pillow and the Boppy Cuddle pillow. I was sleeping without my Tempur-pedic pillow because my Snoogle wraps around my neck. I finally decided that I had to have my Tempur-pedic pillow ontop of the curl of the Snoogle pillow that should wrap around my neck. Because I have pelvic pain I needed an extra pillow between my legs because the Snoogle wasn't keeping my legs separated enough while I slept. I started using my Boppy between my legs in addition to the Snoogle. That left my belly unsupported. So I took one of the pillows from our guest room to help with that. I now sleep in a fortress of pillows and it's quite enjoyable. It's like sleeping on a cloud and I don't even feel the need to change positions in the middle of the night. The only problem that I have is getting out of the fortress of pillows when I have to pee. Now that I'm sleeping better I no longer feel as tired during the day. It's rather nice.

Last Tuesday I noticed that I could see the baby kicking on the outside. It was pretty cool. I'm still rather entertained by it and spend much of my day with my shirt tucked up under my bra staring at my belly. She's been kicking harder and moving around a lot more. It's starting to feel like actual limbs moving around inside of me. It's pretty cool and a little bit weird, but mostly cool. While I was brushing my teeth last night I felt some pressure on my right side. I pressed my hand up against my stomach and I could feel a hard spot. I think it was her little butt pushed up against my belly. I went over to the bed and put Howie's hand on it so that he could feel it too.

On October 2nd Howie and I went to the hospital for another ultrasound. I know, everyone is so over me having ultrasounds because the only other couple on the planet that had this many ultrasounds would be TomKat, but only because they actually OWNED their own ultrasound machine. Anyway, I guess my new doctor does an extra ultrasound for IVF patients. My last doctor also didn't keep a copy of the ultrasounds in my file. I knew that doctor sucked! Thank God I have a new one now. Anyway, she looked fine. She looks like Howie for sure. I'm not kidding, she has his profile. I had some extra time on my hands yesterday so I put a profile comparisson picture together as a joke. I'd show you the silly profile comparison photo but Blogger is sucking ass today and won't let me upload photos! DAMN YOU BLOGGER! DAMN YOU!! ::shakes fist::

This weekend Howie and I are going to be picking out baby furniture. It'll probably be delivered sometime in November, so we have a few weeks to finish cleaning out the boxes in the baby's room and then paint. Hopefully it'll all be done in time for my baby shower. That way I can bring everything home, wash it (if it's washable), and then put it away. I know, it seems a bit early, but that's just how I am. I'm like this with any long awaited event.

There is one thing that I keep obsessing over, it's the name that Howie and I chose for her. I love this name, I've loved this name since I was 18 years old and traveled to Ireland with my cousins. The name is Aislinn, and it doesn't sound the way that it looks. It's pronounced Ash-lynn. See, a couple of weeks ago Howie and I were at his parents house for dinner. Their friends were over and they were looking at our latest ultrasound when someone asked what we were going to name her. Howie said that we're going to name her Aislinn and that it's an Irish name so it's not spelled the way that it sounds. That's when Howie's parents' stupid friend, who we can call BFI for Big Fucking Idiot, asked how the name is spelled and I started to tell her, "A-I-S..." and she cut me off. "Wait! A-S-H." I said, "No. It's not spelled the way that it sounds, there's no S-H. It's A-I-S..." She cut me off AGAIN! "Wait! The name is Aislinn, right?" I took a deep breath, "Yes, but it's NOT spelled the way that it sounds. You can't spell it phonetically." "Ok, so spell it for me again." "A-I-S..." "A-S-H" "NO! You're trying to spell it phonetically! It's not spelled like that! It's A-I-S-L-I-N-N" She looked confused, "Say the name again and then spell it" I was so pissed off at this point so I said, "There's no point in me saying the name and then spelling it for you. I can spell it for you all day and it's not going to make any sense because it's not spelled the way that it sounds. The name is in Gaelic, it's another language so it's not spelled phonetically. It doesn't have an easy English spelling because it's Irish. AIS in Irish/Gaelic sounds like what ASH sounds like in English. So you can't expect the spelling to include an ASH because it doesn't. Her name is spelled A-I-S-L-I-N-N and it's pronounced Ash-lynn!" She probably thought I was a raging bitch, but how fucking thick do you have to be? I tried to cool things down by making a stupid joke that ended up just being lame. I said, "Maybe she'll hate me for giving her that name but she's going to grow into a teenager and tell me that she hates me anyway. (hahahaha) I might as well just go ahead and name her anything I want." BFI's response was, "Or she'll probably just legally change her name." WHAT THE FUCK???? Are you fucking serious? If I wasn't so damn polite I would have hauled off and punched that bitch in the face. So, before this conversation with BFI, who by the way is a teacher who I would think would have run into all kinds of different names including names that aren't spelled phonetically like SEAN which she probably would pronounces SEEN, I figured that our daughter might have to correct her teacher on the first day of school when she/he reads off her name during attendance or explain to her friends that her name is spelled A-I-S-L-I-N-N but I never imagined that she may end up having a conversation like I had with BFI. I figured that when she was little she may not appreciate her name the same way I do, but I thought that she might learn to love that her name was different when she grew up and could enjoy her individuality. It's a beautiful name, it means dream, and that's what she is to us. She's our dream. I could spell her name phonetically, but then it's the combination of the names Ashley and Lynn, it's no longer Irish (which is my background), and it no longer has the same meaning. It's simply a different name. The thing is, people learned how to pronounce Sinead when Sinead O'Connor started making music and people seem to get by when they see Sean instead of Shawn. Maybe Aislinn isn't as popular here as it is in Ireland, but I love the name. My only concern is that our baby girl will hate it and that I'm giving her a lot to deal with everytime she comes in contact with a BFI. I came across a thread on the internet about this name and a woman who liked it when it was pronounced incorrectly. She was wondering if it would be horribly ignorant of her to keep the spelling and just pronounce it Ayzlynn. Everyone with an Irish background or just the general respect for people of other cultures said no, that she should just come up with another spelling but not mispronounce an Irish name. You can't possibly say you like the name Aislinn if you don't like the correct pronunciation. What she likes is the way she thinks the name should sound, not the name. So she should change the spelling and just make up her own name so that she isn't a BFI. Then the ignorant morons in the thread would say stupid things like "We're a phonetic culture and nobody in the U.S. is actually going to pronounce it like the Irish do. Since you like the pronunciation Ayzlynn there's no need to change the spelling because in English the phonetic spelling would be Aislinn." Reeeeeally BFI #2, if Aislinn was the phonetic spelling then why were you using the spelling Ayzlynn to describe the sound of the name? CLEARLY she can create a whole new name that is spelled Ayzlynn and the meaning for the name would be My mother and her friends are BFIs. Sorry, the whole thing just pissed me off when I was reading it. It's not just my issue with this name or people screwing up Irish names, it's that people actually think that people of other cultures in this country should come here and either only choose nice little Anglo names or create new phonetic spellings for names that do not have an English origin. There are many different cutures in this country and I guess I put more faith in that, thinking that my daughter wouldn't be the only one with a name that wasn't spelled out phonetically and that knowing other kids with different names would make her feel less insecure about her name. However, there seem to be more BFIs out there than I orignally thought. Her middle name will be Madison. If she really doesn't feel comfortable with her name I suppose she could have people call her Madison. I hope that she doesn't, but I'll understand if she does. I would just not want her to go legally change her name the moment she turns 18 years old. My husband is Jewish and I'm converting to Judaism, so of course we will be raising our children as Jews. However, I am proud of my Irish background and it was important to me that she be proud of that part of herself and that I give her something (other than freckles and pale skin) from my background. Howie and I both love the name, so that's what I'm giving to her.

3 Year Anniversary

Three years ago today I married Howie. I met Howie on July 3, 1997 in Washington, DC. He and my brother were roommates at the time. I had decided to take the train down with my brother's girlfriend to see him for the holiday weekend. My brother met us at the train station with Howie and I remember thinking that he was cute and that he'd probably just think of me as his roommate's annoying little sister. I was wrong, when we went out to the comedy club that evening Howie held my hand under the table and smiled at me. The comedian on stage quickly noticed and proceeded to make fun of us for the rest of the show. After that Howie and I split up from my brother and his girlfriend. We went to a dance club and that's where we first kissed. Sometime after midnight on the 4th of July he and I decided that we were officially a couple. I know it sounds like we were moving quickly, and maybe we were, but I had never met anyone so wonderful in my life. He was genuinely nice. An actual nice guy, I didn't know they existed. Oh, and he was cute, seriously cute. I loved the way he looked when we first met at the train station, still dressed in his shirt and tie from work and he had a really nice summer tan. Anyway, we dated long distance for about a month and then I broke up with him. We were 18 years old, we were young! I had seen my sister and a number of other people get too serious too early in life and it never seemed to turn out too well for them. I knew I loved Howie, I knew it that first weekend, but what if I was wrong? What if I was just a stupid teenager over romanticizing things? I didn't speak to him again until spring of 1998. He was happy to talk to me, but he had just met another girl at college and it looked like I had missed my chance. While he dated this girl for the next two years we remained friends and talked almost every day. I had always hoped that they would just break up so that I could have another chance with him, but I think it was around January of 2000 I had given up on that. He had just graduated from college a semester early, his girlfriend had another year and a half before she finished college but I just assumed that he was going to ask her to marry him sooner or later. I decided that I was happy for him because he really seemed to love her and all I wanted was for him to be happy. So when I had finally prepared myself to move on it happened! They broke up! I couldn't believe it when he told me. I felt bad for him because he really cared about her but I was also thrilled because he was single again. I didn't want to be too eager, he had dated her for two years and he needed time. Howie and I remained friends, chatted as we always had. A few months later my brother called me to say that the Navy was sending him overseas for a year and asked if I'd like to live in his apartment for free while he was gone. A free apartment in Arlington, VA only 10 minutes from Howie? Of course! I moved to Arlington in June of 2000 but by this time Howie was dating other women in the area. None of them were serious, but I didn't want to be one of the rebound girls. I started to date another guy in the area for a few months but by the time autumn rolled around that relationship was over and the long line of girls that Howie had been dating had finally come to an end. I think that we were together almost every spare moment we had. You'd think that taking things to the next level would have been easy at this point, but I think it was actually more difficult because we had become best friends. There was more on the line, neither of us wanted to risk the friendship. We finally got over that and began dating again on January 20, 2001. We had moved in together by May so that I would be out of my brother's apartment when he came home. At this point we knew this was it, we knew that we were going to get married some day. On the evening of March 8, 2002 Howie took me to the Lincoln Memorial and asked me to marry him on the top step. I of course said yes and we were married on October 12, 2003. So, yes, three years of marriage isn't that long but I fell in love with him nine years ago and I will love him for the rest of my life. He's the sweetest man I've ever known and I am thankful for him every day of my life. He is always there for me, he's always strong for me when I need him to be, he understands me, he knows me better than I know myself, he has faith in me, he makes me feel sexy even though I'm sure that I appeared to be much sexier when I was 18 years old, and most importantly he's my best friend. So, Howie, I love you! Happy 3rd Anniversary, baby!