101 N Cervix Blvd, Apt A

peace-sign, originally uploaded by camille94019.

Dutch and I had a successful sonography session this week. The sonograms have been one of the best parts of being pregnant. She started off as a blob, with a yolk, even, back in August. This more recent session was a revelation of finger bones and girlie-bits and ventricles, atria, kidneys, stomach, maxilo-facial bones, symmetries, tibiae and ulnae, fibulae and radii, placenta and umbilical cord, maternal ovaries and a cervical measurement (no comment, read the sign on the wall, lady), a spinal cord with an unbroken covering, tooth buds, ribs,a pelvis, long bones, no brain visible yet, but some kind of structure that makes spinal fluid, a nose and mouth, and ears-on-the-side-of-the-head. To the chagrin of my mother-in-law, no hair yet (but knowing my people, that won't show up til the next olympiad). We watched her dodge the Probe, spin in circles, turn her head and to the delight of our sonologist, flash a peace sign.

Picking out names is hard. We were hoping that once we knew the gender, we could focus a little better. Not so. Dutch and I have been having an easier time coming up with names we won't use. The latest flop is "Slothropina Voldegorna." But we have not considered hundreds of others, mostly anything starting with a D' or a La (D'Baba, D'Monisha, LaLavinia, D'Fenestra LaPrague), Italian Food Names (Ciabatta, LaPuttanesca, AquaCotta, Ricotta, Grappa, Foccaccia, Pancetta), English Last Names (Ashleigh, Colby, Chelsea, Madison, Morgan, Whitby, Darby, Cheddar, Tudor), City Names of the Far East (Lhasa, Djibouti, Bombay, Shanghai, Bangkok, Battambang, Phuket), Names that Sound Dirty (Fellashea, Kunilingia), Southern City Names (Atlanta, Savannah, Charleston, Miami, Ft Lauderdale), Mountains and Mountain Ranges (Sierra, Shasta, Andes, Himalaya, Rocky, Appalachia, Gavilan, K-4), Celtic Names (Siobhan, Samhain, Brianna, Gwenevere, Moira, Fiona, Kyleigh), Anything from Sci-Fi or Fantasy (Trillian, Tyrene, Padme, Leia, Amidala, Chewbacca, Greedo, Jabba, Uhuru, Galadriel, Eowyn, Arwen, Precious), Wines and Alcohol (Shiraz, Merlot, Cabernet, Chablis, Zinfandel, Gewurztraminer, Cooler, Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Burgundy, Port, Brandy, Sake, Soju, Vodka, Genever), Arabic Names (Aya, Jihad, Fatima, Fatwah, Kismet), Nahuatl Names (Eztli, Nochtli, Xitomatl, Momoztli, Xilli, Xiuhcoatl, Xacolatl, Yaotl, Tlexictli, Ahaucatl, Nixoxouhcaceehziomoyollotli*), Goddess Names (Tiamat, Isis, Thea, Gaia, Kali, Eris, Demeter, Juno, Venus, Persephone, Inanna, Hera, Ishtar, Freya, Hecuba) and of course, we must steer clear of anything Pynchonesque like Slothropina.

*Dutch invented this one when he found out that Nahuatl is much like German, in that you can construct big words by stringing a bunch of little words together. This means "I eat your very bloody heart raw."