He's gonna grab it!

I created this blog months ago, and then I let it marinade out there in web-space. I suppose I was waiting for inspiration. Writing was my outlet during a particularly difficult period of my life; unfortunately, when I emerged as a happier, healed person, I felt like I had lost my voice. Well, inspiration = found.

When you get pregnant, it seems that people want to know about, well, everything. I've never been much of a phone talker, and I rarely participate in "spill sessions." And Josh is a boy - most are wired without the chit-chat gene. Josh and I figured this would be a great way to keep everyone up-to-date on the pregnancy and all things baby.

In case you didn't know, we're having a boy, and we've named him Liam (hence the name, Letters to Liam). Liam Axel Hastings, to be exact. With a rock star name like that, this kid is bound to have some cool, right? He'll just have to work hard to shed the quirkiness of his parents. My grandpa had four girls and SURVIVED. I'm a girl, and I still think that's a lot of girl. He never got a boy to carry-on the Axel name, so we thought it'd be a pretty cool thing to name our first kid, girl or boy, Something Axel Hastings. Lucky for us, finding that Something part of the name was a synch. I just wanted a short first name, as Elizabeth wasn't a gem to bubble-in on scantron sheets. We found out on April 16th (a glorious day for more than one reason) that it would be Liam, and not Zoey.

A funny story about our sexing (that's what they call it when they separate baby chickens) appointment: Our doctor, Dr. Shaban, put the probe on my stomach and said, "You guys want to know what it is, right?" I was too anxious-excited to say anything other than, "YES," but Josh managed to assume he'd seen a boy part. And then WHAM!, Liam closed his legs and started showing hamburger (http://pregnancy.about.com/od/boyorgirl/ss/genderus_3.htm). After jiggling my stomach, and my love handles, a few times, Dr. Shaban flipped a switch and there was our baby in 3-D (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_ultrasound). Usually you don't do a 3-D ultrasound until around 28 weeks, as an 18 week-old baby look a little alien-like... And I quote, "It'll look a lot more normal when it has SKIN." [Aside: I LOVE our doctor - he says the things that you think but don't say out loud because there's a doctor (i.e. an adult) around]. After I was done assessing Liam's weirdness, I said, "Hey, is that a penis?" I am proud to say that Liam's is the first 18-week old penis our doctor has seen in 3-D. Seconds later, Liam grabbed it, and our doctor exclaimed, "Oh look, he's gonna grab it!" We have the BEST, and quite possibly the earliest, blackmail picture of our son. We're already plotting the embarrassement factor of meeting that first date...

This week, Liam is the size of a heirloom tomato... 6 inches long head to bottom and 8 1/2 ounces (http://www.babycenter.com/6_your-pregnancy-19-weeks_1108.bc).