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.