We're in the home stretch now, people. The c-section is scheduled for Tuesday October 4th, so mark your calendars. The question I'm getting the most is "how are you feeling" and the answer is "fine." This baby's a lot like Edie, in that he's not a particularly active fetus. Every once in a while he'll roll over just to prove he's still in there, but otherwise doesn't make much of a fuss. I still have never had a contraction or any signs of active labor, and fingers crossed things will stay that way.
The second most-asked question is whether we've picked a name. Nothing's set in stone, but we're pretty sure it will be Martin. Don't bother telling us your opinion on the matter, because we don't care. It's a family name on both sides, and we think Martin Reed sounds pretty solid. Sam was insistent that we pick a name that could be made into a two-syllable nickname, which in this case would be Marty. Now, as I pointed out with Harold and Arthur, there's baggage attached to any name, and in this case it's that there are already two Martys in the house.
For those of you not in the loop, I sleep with not one, but two crocheted blankies, and both of them are named Marty. As a child I named my blanket Marty. I don't know why. Anyway, my original Marty bit the dust when I decided to take a pair of scissors to him as a little kid. Since then I've had two replacement Martys, who happened to overlap because Marty #2 went missing but was found ten years later when I already had Marty #3.
What I'm getting at is that our baby would technically be Marty IV, and should he have a white crocheted baby blanket, it would be Marty V. What a legacy!
Lastly, here's the latest ultrasound. Looks like Sam, right?
We are going on vacation next week, and so today, in an effort to not leave everything to the last minute, I sat down and cleaned out the diaper bag. You ready for this?
Things in the diaper bag that conceivably belong in a diaper bag:
(3) diapers
(1) 1 oz package of mini Ritz crackers
(2) packages of fruit snacks
(2) packages of tissues
(1) roll of small garbage bags
(1) sippy cup
(1) container off-brand Froot Loop-equivalent cereal
(2) changing mats, one disposable
(2) containers of baby wipes
(1) drawstring bag of toys, containing: orange stegosaurus, pirate finger puppet, bandana, ukulele keychain, bee finger puppet, Hello Kitty PEZ dispenser, action figure, slinky, tape measure, yo-yo, plastic stylus, wind-up Hello Kitty toy, container full of bread ties, and one bouncy ball
(1) passport
(1) birth certificate $3 in cash
Things that are potentially useful, or might have served a purpose at one point, but don't really need to be in there now, or of which there are too many:
(6) ballpoint pens
(1) fine point permanent marker
(5) crayons
.29 oz grape PEZ
(1) Hello Kitty hair bow
(2) restaurant mints (currently being eaten)
(1) Always pad
(1) flash drive
(1) empty Ziploc container with lid, capacity 1 cup
(1) extra lid for said Ziploc container
(1) plastic spoon
(1) shirt, size 18 mos (outgrown)
(1) pair of pants, size 2T (outgrown)
(7) toothpicks
Garbage. Just pure garbage:
(1) baggage claim ticket, 7/9/15
(1) TSA Junior Officer sticker
(1) set of directions to I don't know where
(1) Mother's Day sacrament meeting program
(1) diagram of a resistor
Notes on how to stay awake during church
(1) business card for Milk Money Vodka
(10) receipts, various
(1) expired coupon for $3 off a 4-pk of Kleenex tissues
(1) white envelope
(1) NYT crossword puzzle (No. 0615), with directions to a karaoke place in Portland on the back
(7) pages of General Conference prop bets, submitted by the Teachers' Quorum
Popcorn. So much stray popcorn.
(1) gallon Ziploc bag full of partially eaten or empty 1 oz packages of mini Ritz crackers or mini Nilla Wafers
(1) empty gallon-sized Ziploc bag
(2) fruit snack package wrappers
(1) Starburst wrapper, cherry
(4) restaurant mint wrappers
(1) used bandaid, with accompanying cotton from a blood draw
(9) used tissues
(1) paper sailboat, broken in half
(1) flosser (3) shopping lists
It's a boy. Now that we know, people are asking us if we have any names, but all I can say is that it will be Something Reed Orme. Sam's middle name is Reed, his dad's middle name is Reed, and his grandpa's middle name is Reed. It's a first-born son thing.
I have a few boy names I love, but can't quite pull off with the middle name Reed. For instance, the name Harold. (Just picture us reading Harold and the Purple Crayon to him.) But if he's a Harold he'll end up being called Harry, and Harry Reed sounds the same as Harry Reid, the senator. Don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of Harry Reid's (surprise, family, I'm a left-leaning moderate), but it might be too much. Plus Harry sounds like hairy, and if this baby grows up to be anything like Sam, hairy he will be. Then there's Arthur. Love the name Arthur, but again, there's Arthur Read, the cartoon aardvark. Sigh. We had such a lovely list of girls' names ready to go.
Anyway, the point is, don't expect us to decide on a name any time soon, or tell you what it is even if we do land on one.
When we were expecting Edie, the end of my first trimester fell on Valentine's Day, so we sent out valentines to announce the big news. This time around the end of my first trimester was in mid-April, which left us with...tax day. So we pushed it off an extra week and went with Earth Day to herald the news of a new baby Orme.
Everything's going fine, and unlike last time my nausea seems to be tapering off a bit (Edie had me puking through week 24). And I know what you're all thinking, every single one of you - something's different! That means it's a boy this time! Well, we'll see, but we won't know the sex for another week and a half, so cool your jets. Actually, a lot of things have been different this go-around. With Edie I had zero food cravings, and the only smell that bothered me was lemon dish soap. Now everything has a smell, absolutely everything. We purchased bags and bags of this frozen Parmesan chicken they sell at Aldi's that we love, and suddenly the smell of it cooking made me gag. So when I was out of the house at book club Sam cooked the lot of it and put it in the freezer so he can take it to work and eat it there.
Two things of note:
1. I gave notice for my babysitting job. During the day I've been babysitting the baby of one of Sam's co-workers, which was a fairly convenient set-up since we live less than three miles from Sam's work. I got him when he was two months old and he's now ten months old, so we had a good run, but he's at the age where he's very mobile, and between him and Edie everything I own is on the floor or in someone's mouth and I'm just too tired to do it anymore.
2. Once we'd told family about the upcoming baby the next step was to tell folks at church. Being the Primary president I decided the easiest way was simply to make an announcement during opening exercises. So I announced about the YW fundraiser, and the deadline for camp forms, and then said I was expecting a baby at the end of October, and asked that each of the children go home and tell their parents in order to save me a lot of leg-work. Well naturally everybody oohed and ahhed and all of that, and then out of nowhere a seven-year-old boy shouted out "Whose baby is it?" This pretty much floored all of the adults in the room, and the music leader was in tears she was laughing so hard. I figured using the word "expecting" had made it sound like a baby was simply arriving at my house in the fall, so I told him "Mine, it's my baby." As an aside to the adults I said "I didn't realize I had such a reputation," and my secretary said "Well, this is great; all the kids are going to go home and tell their parents that you're pregnant and don't know who the father is!"
Never a dull moment in Primary my friends, never a dull moment.
(As you'll have noticed, I don't blog much anymore, and that's because I'm on Twitter. Find me there and you'll get the scoop on all of Edie's shenanigans and my daily goings-on.)
