It’s really real, and I keep writing about it and thinking about it but the truth is that I don’t really believe it yet. Kevin says he’s the same way, but frankly he didn’t believe we were going to have a baby last time until like 30 minutes after Nicolaus was born. This morning I started thinking about names for the first time. Maybe it will feel more real if we’re talking about names, you know?

So I did a google search, found a major baby name web site and was immediately distracted by how completely horrible and wrong a lot of their name suggestions are. I’m all for unusual names and in general I think that parents should be able to name their kids whatever they want without being given any crap about it. But. BUT. There are some lines of basic human decency, and I was surprised that this apparently respectable web site would so recklessly encourage parents to cross those lines. Within three minutes I forgot all about choosing a beautiful name for my hypothetical child; I was too busy giggling and cutting and pasting terrible names.

Here are some of the worst boys’ names I found.
• Luteris (Though it would be fun to tell people “I got a Luteris in my uterus!”)
• Lowenhard
• Leegrant (Middle name: Shermanjackson)
• Todorko
• Tuta
• Timofie {My name is Timofie and I lost two teef last year.)
• Teemofe (At first I thought this one was pronounce TEE-MOAF and was maybe kind of cool in a future rapper kind of way. Then I realized wait, it’s supposed to be the same as Timofei or Timofey)
• Topwe
• Tales
• Tetris (Hahahaa okay part of me secretly think this one kicks ass.)
• Tev
• Teva
• Tewdwe
• Tohon (Sounds like a subatomic particle to me. Or a warrior from a crappy movie.)
• Tomito (You say Tomito, I say WHAT?)
• Tord
• Tandy
• Matte (Then the site actually says, as though this is a good thing that “matte” means “Having a dull or lusterless surface; a dull surface, as on metals, paint, paper, or glass.” What a great namesake!)
• Madog (Sweetie, you were named after the worst hangover I’ve ever had in my entire life.)
• Massimilano (They obviously had an editor go through at the last minute and throw in some random foreign sounding names for diversity’s sake)
• Muruganandan (The editor was obviously in a huge hurry and made a bunch of them up by closing his eyes and typing real fast)
• McKay (Drugs are bad Mmmmmckay?)
• Oral (Um…)
• Ottoman (I’m not making this shit up!)
• Duff
• Dat
• Dieter
• Dude
• Dud
• Deepesh
• Darling (No, really, naming your son darling is completely fine and definitely won’t fuck him up for life! Baby name books don’t lie!)
• Both Ozzy and Osborne made the O list. Which, I mean, clearly worked out alright for that Ozzy guy.

For girls, it was the B list that did me in.
• Benigna
• Bich
• Beathag (Is this one pronounced Beathe-AG or is it Beat-hag? Either way, holy crap.)
• Batini (With a side of marinara please)
• Bua (Bua ha haaaaa)
• Brylieva (No really, I Brylievya didn’t make up that name)
• Bolade (Bolade brand genital cream. Stops the itch.)
• Bobo
• Bano (Ooooh… spanish for bathroom. A lovely name for a lovely lady.)
• Bat
• Bride (No pressure)
• Brynhild (At first I thought this one said Brainchild)
• Ingeborg
• Immacolata
• Nada (What a way to keep her ego in check.)
• Lolita (I’m so glad my parents named me with my future porn career in mind!)
• Ha

This morning Nicolaus woke up and decided he wanted to talk about the baby afterall. He piled up into my bed with a shaggy stuffed dog and the two of them inspected my stomach. He pulled up my shirt and helped the dog peer into my belly button, then he stuck his finger in there and told the dog "There's a baby in there."

The dog didn't say anything.

Nicolaus tried looking into my belly button, and was disappointed when I told him that it's closed so you can't see what's in there. "But," I offered, "If you want you can listen and see if you can hear the baby. Would you like that?"

"Es."

He pressed his ear against my stomach, and his eyes widened when he heard a loud rumbling. "Do you hear the baby in there?"
"Es I do!"
I must always remember to do this when I'm hungry.

"What's that baby doing?"

"He's just crawlin awound in there."

"That's right, he is!" Then I explained that he's in a little bag so he can't crawl all over inside me, just in my tummy.

I don't remember all of the rest of our conversation, just that it ended with Nicolaus offering to stick a thermometer into my belly button to take the baby's temperper, and spontaneously kissing my stomach and then kissing my cheek and hugging me. I know that bringing a baby into a two year old's world is a sort of apocolyptic parenting move and is never easy or even smart to do, but after this little exchange I'm feeling much less nervous* about the whole thing.

*where nervous = “terrified”

Everything is great. Perfect heartbeat, perfect uterus, perfect perfect. They put me on an antibiotic for a UTI I didn’t know I had, which apparantly a common thing for pregnant women to develop. I’ve also lost another half a pound since my last visit but they weren’t concerned. The nurse seemed confident that my appetite will switch over from weak to horrifyingly unstoppable within a couple of weeks.

Kevin and Nicolaus got to hear the heartbeat. We told Nicolaus that the doctor was going to hold a little microphone up to mama’s tummy and see if there is a baby in there or not. And there was! Yay!

So Nicolaus finally knows for sure what’s going on. And he doesn’t want to talk about it.

The most random stuff keeps making me cry. They never actually covered this on Star Trek, but I bet Vulcans totally busted into tears over Kleenex commercials while they were pregnant.

Any song lyric that hints at the strings that connect children to past generations is guaranteed to make me lose it. Dwight Yokum (shoot me now, please) has a song about the younger generation moving out of mining towns to look for a better future. Part of it goes…
Did you ever seem them put their kids in the car after work on a Friday night?
Pull up in a holler about three am them lights are still burning bright
Those mountain folks stay up that late just to hold those grandkids in their arms, in their arms…

Every damn time, that last part makes me cry. The rest of the song — nothing. But “hold those grandkids in their arms” — I’m gone in an instant, usually while driving. So keep that in mind the next time you’re driving and you get behind someone who is driving too slow and you hate them and tailgate them because what the hell is the matter with you, lady? She might be pregnant and under the influence of a particularly moving Dwight Yokum lyric. Go around.

Well a few minutes ago, Tori Amos did it to me with Winter. It’s about a girl and her father.
Snow can wait, I forgot my mittens, wipe my nose, get my new boots on.
I get a little warm in my heart when I think of winter, I put my hand in my father’s glove
I run off where the drifts get deeper, Sleeping beauty trips me with a frown
I hear a voice “You must learn to stand up for yourself cause I can’t always be around”
He says
When you gonna make up your mind
When you gonna love you as much as I do?
When you gonna make up your mind? Cause things are gonna change so fast
All the white horses are still in bed. I tell you that I’ll always want you near
You say that things change my dear

Oh my god. I ran out of the room sobbing and couldn’t stop. I just love my dad so much! Wahhhhhhhhh!! Mouse followed me, looking concerned. Nicolaus didn’t even notice, he was busy pretending to be on a boat. Thankfully, Kevin wasn’t here to laugh at me. Dude, I have got to get ahold of myself.

When I was this pregnant with Nicolaus, all I did was lay on the couch and think about the miracle of life inside me. All I thought about was him. Nicolaus Nicolaus Nicolaus. Now I’m pregnant again, and again all of my focus is on… Nicolaus.

It helps in some ways because it’s hard to concentrate on feeling horrible when someone is running through the house pulling a small wagon inside a slightly bigger wagon because “That ittle wagon is SICK. He needs to wide to the doctor!” Of course I had Mouse to keep me company last time, but he almost never did things like that.

But in some ways, as the all-day sickness is easing off into just evening sickness, I really want to start savoring this pregnancy. This could be the last time I grow my own human, and I don’t want to blink, clean up a few toddler poop incidents, and oops miss it. Of course, by mid-August when it’s 105 degrees here and I’m huge and hot and want to die, the idea of savoring anything will seem hilarious but really. There is nothing in the world like feeling a baby move inside you. Okay, so sometimes having gas comes very close but it’s different when you know it’s NOT gas. It’s different when you see your stomach move in response to your husband’s voice and you can imagine the tiny little foot that’s pressing against the inside of your belly. There is nothing in the world that even comes close, and I don’t know how to split my focus. So lately I’m just trying to take advantage of private moments whenever I can. And I know it’s a few weeks too early for this but sometimes I swear I feel the baby moving in there. Nothing major, just a soft little bomp bomp. Maybe it’s gas, I don’t know. In any case, I woke up early this morning and just layed in bed, concentrating on the baby. Did you hear what I said?? The! Oh wow! Baby!!

I’m such a fucking sap for babies.

Twelve week check up today. The first trimester is almost over. According to my weekly “Your pregnancy this week” emails, the fetus is now the size of a kumquat. I’m not kidding, they really said kumquat. Last week it said walnut, and I’m thinking about writing them a letter because I thought walnuts were bigger than kumquats so I’m a little concerned as to why my baby might be shrinking. Maybe I’ll ask the doctor about that today.

Kevin’s meeting me at the OB’s office after work where they’re going to drain all my blood out and I’m going to lie about my diet and we’re going to hear all good news and hear the very healthy heart beating. For some reason, I don’t feel worried all the time like I did when I was pregnant with Nicolaus. I was so scared of losing him every second that I missed a lot of the joy and fun of producing another person at home. But now I feel much more confident, and I trust my instincts a lot more. When I peed on that stick last summer, I knew. I knew I was pregnant and I knew something was wrong. And this time I totally knew I was pregnant, and I had this wonderful calm feeling about it. Everything was going to be fine. I knew it.

So who knows, maybe my positive outlook is all wrong and maybe we’ll go today and learn horrible news and this journal is about to become a lot less fun for a while but for now it’s early morning, I’m alone with my peaceful, happy, everything’s-okay thoughts. As far as I’m concerned, right at this moment there is a perfect little kumquat in my tummy.