Outage.....

[seneca196]

Great to have you back. Hope it all goes well. Best wishes.

[RedThorn]

Somewhere on here lost in the annals of posts on the vine was a bit about our ( wife and I ) tribulations with regards this self same topic, like you, I find the process fascinating rather than embarrassing however we're in the minority, hopefully your post will help others who are not as forward as us.

On a side note, after giving up, the wife fell pregnant again and after 3 miscarriages gave birth to a healthy and hale son and 3 years later we had another son with none of the trials and tribulations that preceded the first son. I wish you both the world of joy and happiness. Fret not on what has passed it can and does come out right in the end. I still think on the past( one was quite far along) however I see my two boys who came after and know all is right and good, even though the pain that preceded it was great, love is greater and more precious for it

I'm not usually verbose in my posts and hence my previous post, however know that there's others who know, understand and wish all they can for you both

Now enough from me before I start getting all soppy and ruin people's perceptions of a sarcastic grumpy begger

[FB.]

One of the nice bits of cogitating a bump is picking names; have you chosen any yet? I was never officially told what sex our bumps were, but I knew #1 was a boy and that the DD was going to be a girl - just as well I was right, didn't pick any names for opposites! The younger two are boys too, but I had girls' names picked out for both.

I was easy-going about whether to be told the sex or not, but my wife preferred to know so she can have a few things ready in advance; pink or blue colour scheme.
The poor lady who came out of the scan before my wife wasn't able to find out the sex because her baby was curled up or in an awkward position - apparently it happens quite often and the NHS won't offer another scan because the scan is to check that all is normal and healthy; boy or girl is of no concern to the NHS. A private scan can be arranged but it has to be paid-for out of your own pocket.

We currently have a very short shortlist of names (I don't know where she's put it) but my wife seems in no hurry to think about names and I don't like most names anyway (I don't like my own name).
A big problem with names is that the kind of names adults are used to are not the kind of names being given to children. So we have to be careful not to give what will feel like an "old-fashioned" name.
For example: when I was at school, names like George and Oliver were rare and considered to be "granddad names" (we don't like either name but we have a nephew named Oliver). But now those two names feature quite highly while names that my school friends had, have gone out of fashion and aren't often given to children nowadays.

There is evidence that children with unusual names are more likely to be teased, bullied and generally "go off the rails", so we don't want to choose a name that is unusual for children at the moment in the hope of reducing the amount of teasing and bullying in their school years.
We also have to be careful about what the initials might spell out, or what the name might be shortened to.

If the baby had been a girl, or if we ever have a girl, my wife has a handful of girl names (or variants of) which she would like to use.

[julesapple]

I so wanted to called one of our sons Aenaeus. For obvious reasons, the BH said no, absolutely not. I still love the name, but kids can be very cruel.

[WendyC]

We used the technique for choosing our boys names by putting "Sir" in front of the first name and surname, and if that sounded ok then it was a good name. Having taught for a good number of years there were quite a few name I associated with some of the tricky customers, and so were not in the running! Traditional names are very popular at the moment, especially Jack.

[Hazel at the Hill]

Thank you for the scan explanation, FB! I was miles out in how I was looking at the little one!!

With regard to names, I think that for the sake of the child, you need to go with what's popular for this particular generation, or he'll stand out a mile - and that might be good in later life, but not so good for school days.

Funny how these things change - in my class there were about four Janes, three Susans and three Sarahs, and a few Helens. My neice's classes were all Mollys, Alices, Eves and Charlottes - all names which would be as odd for my generation as Hilda, May, Brenda, Merris would be, which were those of my mother's generation.

Mind you, I don't know if 'fashions' are so acute with boys - I think that solid names like Jack, John, Alexander, George, David, Stephen will always stand the test of time.

The only caution I would extend is not to spell his name in a 'funky' way so he stands out - for the only reason that he will spend his whole life spelling his email address out to people - or will we have moved on from those by the time he grows up?

[Scarlet]

Well when I was expecting I didn't want to know whether they were boys or girls or even one of each! I had a very short list of both but when I gave birth to two boys they really didn't 'suit' the names I had listed!!
It took me six weeks and a letter from the local council to get two names. My youngest (by a minute) cannot believe I called him number 2 for 6 weeks
I called my first born a strong welsh name and he's loved being the only one with the name throughout school that even some adults can't spell! With the other one my husband put his foot down and Islwyn is his middle name

[dogsbody]

Happy for you both, hoping all goes well for you.

[FB.]

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I've not been on here much for several months.

Before I spend the next few days catching up with the numerous private messages and any interesting topics, I thought I'd explain what's been happening.

In the spring my wife (who is approaching her mid-30s; quite a bit younger than me) got pregnant but miscarried in the first trimester - the miscarriage began on her birthday; mother nature has a cruel sense of humour sometimes.

My wife got pregnant again in the summer, but during the first trimester was literally bed-ridden, often afraid to move due to bad morning sickness ("all-day sickness") - at times it was bad enough that I thought she'd end up having a short stay in hospital.

My wife will soon be in the third trimester, and everything seems fine at the moment - her sickness has gone, she's feeling fine, all blood tests have come back normal and the baby has had the usual 12 and 20 week scans and everything is fine (fingers crossed).

It's a boy; due date has been estimated as early April 2014.

Cheers,
F

Here he is (and he's the reason why I haven't been around much for the last few months):

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[FB.]

More pictures....

[broadway]

Congratulations to all of you!

Thank you for bringing a happy tear to a miserable Monday morning face.

[WendyC]

How wonderful. Congratulations to you both.

[Bigmallly]

Nice one FB, he looks a lickle bruiser................

[chris]

Congratulations both

[PyreneesPlot]

Congratulations - what a smile!