Baby name ideas

You know how I'm always saying that I think the human gestation period is 9 months because that's how long it takes the dads to get on board with being serious about naming the baby? Well, it isn't any different the third time around.
All through the first pregnancy Mr. W wanted to name the baby Moses. He's back on a Moses kick this time too. Except this time he has decided it would be awesome to name him Moses Tecumseh W_, you know since Wm. Tecumseh Sherman was the first Buckeye to burn a couch to celebrate a victory.
I just finished reading Gore Vidal's Lincoln last week which Mr. W had already read. We're getting all excited about watching the movie and were talking about all the people and we got on the topic of Salmon Portland Chase, who was the Sec. of the Treasury and went on the be a Supreme Court Justice. We thought that was interesting since he was from Ohio, but it is such an Oregon centric name now. I was wondering if the name was pronounced like the fish (silent L) or more like Salman Rushdie. Mr. W looked it up on some website which said it was a variant of Solomon. So now he thinks that Salmon W_ would be perfect for this baby. I'm not sure if he's joking or not. As a joke I suggested Salmon Angus W_ and now he regrets that we aren't having twins because they could be Salmon and Angus and he could nick name them Surf n Turf. Lord, help me!
I often toss out girl names on our list when referring to the baby to see how they sound. Mr. W corrected me and said, "You mean little Salmon."  And then his eyes lit up and he said, "You mean Little Salmonella!" Sigh! So if he had his way this baby would be named for a fish or a bacteria. Perfect.

Finally some progress for the guardrail

After months and months of exchanging emails with a metal worker for the guardrail for our exterior basement stairs, work began this week. They came out two days ago to install the 3 mounting brackets for the posts and today they are out assembling the horizontal members. This whole process began during the summer when our home insurance company required a railing on the exterior staircase. It wasn't something we were ever expecting to do so I was unprepared to do it and began by searching for salvaged material we could incorporate.
I met with a metal smith and we looked over  historic photos of the house which show the original iron fence along the perimeter of the property, but it is hard to make out the detail. In the end though I decided something simpler would be better since this isn't visible from the street. Many old examples I found were a simple 3 horizontal bars with alternating height pickets.  I used this short & tall pickets example as my main guide. I found some new finials on this website. It turns out they are for round pickets, not square like the metal worker was thinking, but I think that round would be more historically appropriate anyway, plus he hasn't really given me much direction on where to find finials so I wasn't in the mood to go searching again.  The end post will be simple rather than the awesome salvaged newel I found. It will have a ball finial on it which looks to be what the end posts were in the original photos of the house.
We will also include a handrail which will be bolted on to the end post. Everything will be welded together and then powder coated all in one piece to reduce the chance for water to get in and rust to form. The only joint will be where the handrail and guard rail are attached.

It is nice after months of work to see some progress, not to mention getting the insurance company off our backs!

A trip to the ER

Baby Boy and I both caught that stomach virus that is going around town. I got sick Wednesday night and about 15 minutes later he woke up vomiting too. Fortunately Our Little Helper was spending the night at Grammy's so he didn't have to experience it, nor did he catch it either. Fortunate that Mr. W didn't have to deal with two sick kids nor did my mom have to deal with one at all.I tried the second time to take care of Baby Boy after he got sick, but only lasted a minute before I had to go into the bathroom myself.
It was pretty awful. I knew it wasn't morning sickness just because my stomach had felt upset for quite a while before hand. I thought maybe it was the ice cream I ate before I headed off to bed.  But immediately after I got sick I knew that wasn't 'normal'. So I went to bed and continued to get sick through out the night until I had nothing left to give. The same for Baby Boy and then he was able sleep through the rest of the night. I, on the other hand, was now stuck in a catch 22. Once my stomach was empty, I started to feel sick because the baby needed food and I needed to eat something to feel better. But even if I drank water, ate ice chips, or took Pepto, I'd throw it up because of the virus. So that's how I spend the whole night, waking up every 30 minutes to barf. It was a horrible cycle.
 I knew I wouldn't be able to fix this myself because of the pregnancy. And mid way through the night I became sick on the other end too. I kept begging Mr. W to let me go to the hospital. I figured I needed to have an IV to get nutrients to the baby since I couldn't keep anything down. He didn't want me to go, he kept trying to feed me something new. I can see the lights of the hospital from my bedroom window so I lay in bed trying to will myself there.
After calling an advice nurse during the night and calling my OB's office after they opened at 8:30 AM I finally was given the green light to go to the hospital. By that point I'd been puking every half hour since 11 PM. Baby Boy was totally perky and happy when he woke up in the morning. You would have never known he had been sick. Not me, I looked like hell.
Once we got to the ER I got sick on last time in the garbage can before I finally got hooked up to the IV. I was very dehydrated and my potassium was low. They also added a dose of Zofran. I asked about how long the treatment would last, in the hopes that Mr. W would take Baby Boy home and I could nap while hooked up to the drip. Instead he said he'd stick around. Aagh! I need to sleep! So instead he took him out to the lobby for a couple hours. Eventually he took him home for a nap while I stayed on the IV. I napped as best I could between the lights being on, people coming in and out of my room, and my bed being right across from the nurses station.
They ended up giving me 2 1/2 bags, or 2.5 liters of fluids. I took an oral Zofran too and was eventually able to eat ice chips and then drink apple juice without getting sick. At that point they were ready to kick me to the curb, literally.  I overheard my nurse outside my room telling another nurse that she had forgotten to do something for me because she had been "putting me on the back burner." That was fine by me, I wasn't vomiting any more.
I asked the ER dr. if everything would be fine with the baby, I figured it would be and that the dehydration would really only bother me, but he seemed to think the baby would be fine. I asked if I should have a NST, but he said no. So hopefully everything is fine with baby.
They sent me home with a prescription for Zofran which has been helpful since I haven't felt 100% better yet. My mom came over the next day to watch the boys for me so I could continue to rest. Reading through the ER paperwork was funny. The dr.'s diagnosis was pregnancy with a second diagnosis of vomiting. Helpful.  Then under prescriptions it listed Zofran, and then seat belts. That made me laugh. Like if someone in this day and age still isn't choosing to wear seat belts I hardly see how having it as a prescription on ER paperwork will suddenly give them a change of heart.
Quite an eventful last week in the first trimester!

Genetic screening test

Now that I'm over 35 for the entirely of my pregnancy, and thus deemed AMA, I knew that my OB would want me to do an amniocentesis. However I learned that there is a brand new test which is blood draw that takes the place of the amnio or CVS tests. I wasn't excited about having to take either of those since both are invasive enough to cause a miscarriage risk. Certainly all these screening tests can be declined, but Mr. W has opted to take them for both our previous pregnancies. So when my OB suggested scheduling the amnio I asked if the MaterniT21 was available in Portland. He wasn't too sure about the name of it, but said he would have this other clinic contact me to set up an appointment.
We had to meet with a councilor first before I was able to do the blood draw. I kinda thought that was a waste of time since we wouldn't terminate a pregnancy unless there was a guaranteed risk to me. It included a health history for both our families. This new test has like a 99% accuracy rate since it tests the DNA so there aren't false positives, the chromosomes are either there or they aren't. They can test for Downs, Trisomy 21, 18, and 13, and for the presence of the Y chromosome, so if we wanted to find out the sex we could rather than waiting until the mid way point for the anatomy scan. I told them to go ahead to test for that too but not to tell us. I want the sex to be a surprise again, but who knows if Mr. W will cave and change his mind again.
 This test also eliminates the need for us to go in for the Nuchal translucency screening test so no 12 week ultrasound for us. I'm okay with that though, we've had 3 so far and I'm sure 18 weeks will arrive before I know it. Because this test hasn't been approved by the FDA yet the counselor told us that while they'll bill the insurance, many insurance companies won't pay for it. AS a result the lab only charges about $200, even though the test costs much more than that, in the hopes that more people will be willing to pay for it out of pocket and take the test, thus increasing their testing circle which will improve their odds of getting approved. We'll see what happens with out insurance. 
The blood draw was pretty simple, I feel I've given a lot of blood recently! We'll get a call with the results in about 10 business days.