Friday, June 1, 2012

Yesterday I Held A Newborn Baby

My local friend, Stitch, gave birth yesterday to her third child. She texted me the baby's name and nice healthy measurements, along with a picture of her and her 3 kids sitting on their hospital bed. (Yep, most people seem to text and FB their birth announcements these days instead of making phone calls and then sending formal paper cards.)

Interestingly, I could not immediately tell from the names nor from the picture whether Stitch's new baby was a girl or boy. I was pretty delighted about that fact, actually, because I knew I would get to walk into the room and receive the news right there, in person. Of course, Stitch had no idea that she has herself a gender ambiguously-named baby. And I'll take my hatred of her name choices to my grave. Let me assure you, it's the names themselves I can't abide, not the fact of their gender ambiguity.

I walked in thinking to myself this baby is probably a boy, but no - she's a girl! And she's just perfect. And very fun to hold. And for the first time I can remember, I am not possessed of a single shred of womb wistfulness. I was pretty sure (95%-ish) before, but now I'm positive: I don't want any more babies of my own. Sometimes life has a funny way of making us certain of things.

10 comments:

feMOMhist said...

nothing better than holding a new baby, and then handing her back! I too have friends whose name choices baffle me, but far be it for me to make that known to anyone EVER.

Unknown said...

oh, the baby name head-scratcher :) everyone's had one!! or created one :) I think we're the only ones out of our circle of friends who gave our kid a middle name. Don't ask.

We're debating baby #3, and we're not even at baby #2 yet. I have to say I look forward to zero womb wistfulness. At some point down the line.

Unknown said...

@Nataliya - Heh, glad to hear there's someone else debating Baby 3 before 2 is here. In my defense, I'm OLD so if there's going to be a 3, I don't have a ton of time. But we have no idea what it's like to have more than one, and we'll learn that very soon ;)

@hush - perfect that you know you don't want more. If you need another reminder, come to Seattle in November-ish :)

And we are those people that pick weird names for our babies. We appreciate that you don't tell us you hate them :D

Anonymous said...

I was going to say that I totally understand and was then reminded (somewhat forcefully, as per usual-- she is a kicker) that in less than 2 months I'm gonna be that mom and of course I want another!

DH has decided he does *not* want a third kid. He's all ready to get surgery, but I'm always worried that if he does that the three of us (me, and the two DC) will get into a flaming car wreck and he'll find another wife and they'll want more babies and something will go wrong with the reverse surgery. Because apparently I have catastrophic thinking.

Cloud said...

I'm done, too. Done, done, done. Can coo at the cute little babies, and hold them and marvel at how light they are. And then hand them back with no wistfulness, really. To be honest, I am not sure I could survive another 2-3 years of sleep hell. I apparently just don't give birth to babies who like sleep. Either that or we suck as parents in that regard. Regardless, I'm looking forward to the end of sleep hell, and have no intention of going back in!

@Anandi, one of the other moms in my day care circle is 53 or so (with a 5 year old). But then, she had to get fertility treatments to conceive. But actually, I'm one of the younger moms, and I'm 40, and not all of the other families needed fertility treatment. (And that is not to imply that only older mothers need fertility treatment- just an observation of one group.)

@Nicoleandmaggie, I think my husband has worries along those lines, too. Which is why I have a Mirena IUD. Which I hated at first, disliked until I weaned, and now think is the best thing EVER.

paola said...

I was just reminded recently that my kids have unusual names ( for Italians ) when we passed thru Italian immigration. On the other hand their names are perfectly 'normal' in the UK, and frankly a dime a dozen!

Couldn't bear to repeat 5 and 7 let alone the newborn or 18 month stage. Perfectly happy with 2 thank you.

Vacationland Mom said...

We are all set with 1 thank you very much. BUT it does creep up on me sometimes, the thought of I'll never have a girl, thankfully it passes without incident :)

I have a great baby name story. I work at a relatively small "family" company and had my son about 19 months ago. After I got back from maternity leave the vice president of said company (the president's daughter) announced she too was pregnant. She gave birth at the end of December and named her son the EXACT same first name as my son. Can I just say I was ripshit. Everyone was all "take it as a compliment" but I was like F*** that. Oh well. Highest form of flattery?

Anonymous said...

My son was going to be named Lillian if a girl. Everyone we know named their daughters Lillian that year. My SIL named their daughter Lillian a year or so later. She's also really pissy when someone "steals" her name ideas... so we have a new girl's name for the upcoming daughter.

Sometimes things are just coincidences.

I have 3 cousins with the same name, two of them honoring the same great aunt (the other is a step-cousin). We're not precious about such things on my side of the family. In the end it's not going to matter.

mom2boy said...

I had baby fever when I decided I wanted one. Prior to that it was a definite no kids for me. Then it was one and done. We are trying for number two, well, in about a week if things progress normally and next month if not. It's strange being in that it will it/won't it work place and thinking on to girl/boy and now at my age healthy/not.

We have a girl name picked out that's so common it's in a song. Unlike Tate's name that I still have to spell to strangers half of the time.

One of the names I had on the short list for Tate was the same name as a friend's son and it was scratched for that reason. Haven't seen that person or his son in years. Maybe we will use it this go round.

hush said...

The best baby name book I have ever read is "The Baby Name Wizard" by Laura Wattenberg. She also blogs, and for reasons I can't fully explain I find her stuff fascinating.

@Anandi- I'm all over the map when it comes to name preferences. I also love me some "weird" names on occasion. Just not fugly ones. One of my kids has a "weird" name (which I generally define as not ranking in the SSA top 1000), and hopefully it is not too fug. ;)

@N&M - I share your catastrophic thinking for my own husband, but hypocritically I would encourage any other male who is certain to have his vasectomy done by a urologist, using the no needle, no scalpel technique. That said, I've known personally of 4 vasectomy reversals that resulted in successful impregnations of wives #2 (and in one case wife #3.) The reversal procedure is expensive, and should only be done by a urologist with fellowship training in vas reversals (they can be hard to identify even in big cities).

@mom2boy - Best wishes on starting to try for baby 2! I'm surprised you have to spell "Tate" frequently - what is wrong with people?