Here we are, 26 hours from a scheduled c-section and it looks like we’ll make it. I was convinced Little Sister would show up last weekend, for several reasons. But she’s so far refused to budge. People say we should be enjoying our final days of just having one kid, but that’s impossible. S. is miserable. When the kid isn’t kicking her or she doesn’t have monster acid reflux, she’s got a foot or head or something pushing on a nerve that makes her left leg go totally numb. And she can’t sleep. Oh, and there’s the peeing every five minutes. Fun stuff. I’ve been having trouble sleeping as well, because each time I hear S. move or make noise, I wake up to make sure she’s not going into labor. Or, when I wake up on my own, I have to lay there and listen to her breathing for several minutes to make sure she’s doing ok. She’s got it much tougher, I know, but it would be nice to go into infanthood with plenty of sleep.

Awhile back I wrote about my curiosity about how kid #2 will differ from kid #1. I probably shouldn’t draw broad conclusions from something like length of gestation, but it’s hard not to. M. was eager to get out, coming two weeks early, and has been non-stop ever since. She’s clearly a kid that has things to do and can’t wait to get them done. She’s in constant motion, always chattering, and prefers a jaunty toddler sprint to a slow stroll. Her sister, on the other hand, seems content to enjoy the womb as long as possible. Does that mean she’ll be laid back to M.’s active? She’ll be quiet when M.’s the life of the party? See, you can drive yourself crazy thinking of these things.

I think we’ve got a name. For about two months, we were down to X, Y, & Z. I ordered them like that, S. ordered them Z, X, Y. Z is a name she’s always wanted to use because of someone that influenced her a lot in med school. I didn’t like it at all, and in fact tried several times to remove it from the list. I actually preferred Y the most, but S. said she had seen a lot of kids come through the nursery recently with that name, so I moved X up. A month or so ago, we dropped Y and seemed to be settled on X. Then, suddenly, two weeks ago, I thought, “You know, Z is actually a pretty good name.” It took some effort, since we had both become very comfortable with X, but I think Z is going to be the winner. It just sounds right. I guess you’ll find out tomorrow. Don’t worry, no variation of Ava is on the list this time.

What’s been fun is to get M. to weigh in on names.
“M., what should be call your sister? Baby X or Baby Z?”
“Baby X! Baby Z!”
“Which one do you like more?”
“Baby Z! Baby Z! Nooooooo! Baby X!”
She’s a big help.