Baby Girl #2

I had an ultrasound done on December 15th, and we found out that we're having another girl! We didn't really have a preference either way. We just thought it would be nice to have a boy so we would have one of each and then it wouldn't matter the next time around. Now there's going to be so much pressure until that boy comes along! I joke around and say that having another girl is Heavenly Father's way of giving me more motivation to keep having children because I am definitely not a big fan of pregnancy.


Taylor's ultrasound pictures were a lot clearer to me. I've had a harder time trying to make out what everything is on the pictures we got of this baby. The above picture is the "girl" shot. Her head is to the left with her hand by her mouth and then her legs folded up with her feet towards her face and her bottom to the far right.


Another picture of her head with her hand up by her mouth. I hope she's not a thumb sucker!

We've had a hard time deciding on a name with this one. With Taylor, we didn't start seriously thinking about names until we knew it was a girl, and then Jared just had a moment of genius, threw out the name Taylor, and we stuck with it. This one has been a different story. I have a few names that I like but for some reason haven't been able to just finalize my decision.

The name that I keep coming back to over and over again is Bella. I love Bella because my great-grandparents on my mom's side were from Italy. I've always kind of wanted to name one of my kids like an Italian or Spanish sounding name. At first, I thought that I would just make Isabella her middle name, and Bella would just kind of be my nickname for her. Then, I thought if I call her Bella, everyone will probably end up calling her Bella, and I don't want her to have to go through the confusion of going by her middle name. If I'm going to call her something, I might as well make it her first name. Well, I guess maybe the main thing that has been holding me back is that one of Jared's best friends from high school, Jeff, has a little girl named Isabella. However, they call her Izzy, and Jeff lives in Kentucky now, so it probably wouldn't be too confusing. I'm not sure why I can't just make a decision, but I do know that Bella is the name that just keeps coming back to me. I did a poll on my Facebook page, and out of 22 votes so far, Bella has won 50% of the votes.

As far as the pregnancy goes, everything is going pretty great right now. I'm finally over the "morning" sickness but not to the point where I'm too uncomfortable yet. With Taylor, my belly really didn't pop out there until the last few months, and this one is looking like it's going to be the same. I kind of actually think I may be smaller with this one than I was with Taylor. I don't know if I'm just carrying her differently or what. I can still wear my regular jeans and button them up- as long as I wear them low below my belly. I'm pretty sure by this point with Taylor even if I was still wearing my regular jeans I couldn't button them and was having to put a hair tie around the button to keep them in place. I do have occasional moments when I feel short of breath from everything being all compacted together, but overall, I feel really good.

We're using our 3rd bedroom as an office, so eventually we will have to decide how we're going to rearrange everything to accomodate the new baby, but I suppose we still have a little time for that since she'll be sleeping in our room for a while after she's born.

She is kicking really good these days although I still just feel it down really low so only Jared has been able to feel her kicking so far. Taylor will pat my belly, give it a kiss, and say "baby," but I'm just not so sure that she really gets it especially since she has tried to do the same to Jared ;-) Taylor loves babies. She calls every doll/stuffed animal that she has "baby" and must have one- or more- around at all times. She has a baby that Grandma gave her for Christmas that came with a bottle, and she will sit there and hold the baby for the longest time giving it the bottle. I am very anxious to see how she will be with the REAL baby!