I wrote her back to ask her what she was sorry for.

“That its passed your due date and you’re still pregnant.”

Had to e-mail her back and give her the whole “it’s an ESTIMATED due date, so it’s not like I was expecting to go into labor the second it was my due date.”

ESTIMATED!

And, let’s be honest, as soon as I’m no longer pregnant it will mean I HAVE A BABY TO TAKE CARE OF 24 HOURS A DAY.  Being pregnant doesn’t sound so bad when you compare it to that.

I don’t think I’ve made it to the totally uncomfortable part of pregnancy.  I mean as long as I can still come to work everyday and sit in my cozy chair in my cubicle, surrounded by blowing AC, and listening to my iPod, then I’m just fine.  It’s far more comfortable then being at home frantically cleaning and scrubbing and washing and folding WITHOUT MAKING ANY ACTUAL PROGRESS!  Plus, at work, I get paid to show up.  So yeah, might as well be making money.

I feel like in much better spirits then I should be.  I mean don’t all overdue women have the right to be ornery?  The only thing that is making me ornery is EVERYBODY at work stopping by my cubicle or calling me to see if I”m here today.

I’M HERE.

I told them all along that I’d be working up until the day I birth a child. So I’m not sure why they’re surprised to see me everyday.

I was curious as to how I was feeling around this same time when I was pregnant with Babboo, so I ventured back into the archives of this site and found this post from April 13th, which was two days past my due date.  I was excited to see that it was full of awesome pictures from my youth.  And honestly, I don’t sound too ornery in the post.  So maybe I wasn’t too uncomfortable.

(I went on to give birth 8 days after my due date, and only after being induced.)

(Wow, there are 90 comments on that post.  That is a total record for me.)

(I had forgotten about that post and reading it again made me so happy.  Seeing this picture of my five year old confirmed that Babboo is my child.)

I also had to go back and read my first post birth post, which included this MOST ADORABLE picture of My Sweet Babboo.

Oh my gosh, it seriously is intense to think that we’ll be having another one of these little guys shortly (or in 8 days, it’s hard to tell).

As of last Friday I was dilated to a 3.5, up from a 1 the week before.  I have another appointment today.  And because of his new job which isn’t located anywhere near me in downtown Seattle, it will be the first appointment The King’s been able to go to with me (although he insists it’s the second one).

I hope it’s the last appointment.

But you can never be certain.

And, because I’m sure someone out there cares (maybe Carrisa?) here is the latest belly shot.  It was taken last Tuesday right before I headed out the door to attend the annual Garden Party that the ladies from church put on.  I decided to wear my sassy red wedges in an attempt  to make myself feel less fat by having the focus be my red shoes.

(I’m not sure how well that logic worked.)

———————————————-

And because I forgot to share this before, here are a couple links you might be interested in.  (Again, Carrisa might be the only one interested.)

Remember when I used to write a column about being a working mom over at SeattleMomBlogs?  I recently was given tickets to see a local play with The King and Babboo.  We went, had a blast, and then I blogged all about it.  (Complete with another picture of my big belly…and my cute kid!)

I was recently interviewed for a local site, the Queen Anne blog.  The article turned out better then I was expecting.  I was a little nervous during the interview and was afraid I’d come off sounding like a huge City Snob.

My parents were surprised to see the coach and his lovely wife. They weren’t the type to just drop in. I remember they sat my parents down in our front room and the four of them talked in hushed tones while my siblings and I went about getting ready for bed.

The next day I asked my parents what they were all talking about the night before. My dad told me that they had asked my parents to raise their youngest daughter, if something were to happen to the rest of the family while they were on vacation. My told me that while this was very unlikely to happen, it was a great honor to even be asked.

My parents had already raised most of my dad’s siblings. So what’s one more kid, right?

They whole next week while the family was on vacation I worried about them getting in an accident. I needed to know whether or not I was getting a new sister. My parents had never asked anyone to do this for us, so I thought maybe the coach and wife knew something that we didn’t know. Like they *knew* their plane was going to go down.

Of course nothing happened to the family and I never got a new baby sister. I never forgot about it though. Any time I saw the little girl over the next few years I felt a bond to her because she could have been my sister.

When my oldest brother turned eighteen my parents had to update their will and put him as the guardian of the rest of us, if something were to ever happen to my parents. Before then I think we all just assumed we’d have gone to live with my Aunt D and her family. If a verbal or contractual agreement existed between them, I wasn’t aware of it. We just all knew that’s what would happen.

For the next three years I worried that something would happen to my parents and Biff would raise us. Dear Lord. Not good.

When I turned eighteen I assumed that my parents changed their will again. This time to put me down as the guardian. OF COURSE.

When Babboo was born The King and I tried to decide who we’d want as Babboo’s guardian, if something ever happened to both of us. The King made it clear that if something happened to just him, HE DID NOT WANT ME TO REMARRY. (I gave permission for him to remarry, but he refuses. That’s a story for another day.) So, besides the “do not remarry” statement, we’ve never been able to come up with who we’d want Babboo to be raised by.

(I know I’ve blogged about this before. Bear with me, it’s on my mind again.)

There are so many things to take into consideration:

• Will this family have enough money?
• Will this family had other kids that will mesh well with ours?
• Will this family take Babboo on trips around the world like we plan to?
• Will this family teach him the same morals we would?
• Will this family be LDS and stay active in the church?
• Will this family be around long enough to see Babboo raised to an adult?
• Do we want family to raise Babboo?
• Do we want him to be raised by friends, who are a lot like us?
• Does this family live in Washington or Utah?

The answers to these questions actually rule out quite a few members of both of our families. The last one especially for both of our parents. Neither one of us are too thrilled about either of our siblings taking this role, also for answers to the questions above.

So it seems that a member of one of our families is out.

That leaves friends.

I think that it’s very important that we find friends that will raise Babboo the closest to how The King and I would raise him and still include our families in his life. Again, some of the answers to our questions rule out some of our friends. Plus, The King is pretty sure our parents will not be happy with it not being a member of the family and might even fight it, if needs be.

This topic has started some very serious discussions (and by “discussions” I mean “fights”) between us. So much so that instead of discussing it we just stopped talking about it.

Since Rerun has come into the picture I’m feeing a little more pressure to finally find someone who we both agree on. At this point I’ve told The King, “I don’t care who we pick, let’s just pick someone RIGHT NOW.”

Seriously, I don’t care. I want it taken care of. I just want to make sure that our precious boys don’t end up living in my sister’s basement with her dogs and cat and no other kids around. Or living with The King’s parents, who may only be alive for the next few years. (Hey, you never know with old people!)

We have two little boys to think of now. This is getting serious.

Even with delegating The King to PICK WHOEVER THE HELL HE WANTS, he still hasn’t given me a definite name. I’d love to be able to give this family a little heads up. Or at least ask their permission. (I hadn’t thought before that maybe someone wouldn’t want to take our precious boys. Would someone turn down this offer?)

Logically I know that there isn’t a very high chance that this need will ever arise. I know that. So I’m not sure why this has caused so much grief for the last 4 years.

But dude, let’s choose already.

Sidenote: Why do we judge people based on their name? It’s not like we name ourselves. I mean, it’s not Harry Pitts fault he has that name. Blame his parents. (They are idiots. Clearly.)

While pregnant with Babboo (which, for the record, you realize is NOT his real name. Or anything close to his real name. Right?) we took a trip to Europe. We fully intended to spend the trip finding The Perfect Baby Name. We visited a hip store in Paris and The King instantly fell in love with its name.

Too bad we were having a boy. Boy’s names are hard.

We cataloged the girl name we found in Paris and the other girl name that we liked in the back of our minds, thinking we might need them for later.

We didn’t need it for later.

We’re back to choosing another boy name. I wouldn’t think naming a kid could get harder then it was last time. Alas, it can. The King and I feel like we’ve already used The Best Boy Name Ever with Babboo.

Other name we think of with just feels like The SECOND Best Boys Name Ever. We don’t want Rerun (again, not baby #2’s real name) to feel like he got the shaft on his name. But yeah, we’ve already used our top pick of boy’s name.

Even with Babboo we didn’t officially settle on his name until after he was born and we got a good look at him.

We didn’t tell anyone his name until after he was born. We didn’t even hint to anyone about it. Inevitably someone would have said something like “I knew a guy named that in high school that used to kill kittens.” Or my mom would have struggled with pronouncing it through my entire pregnancy.

Even though we never shared the name and made it clear that we weren’t going to share, that didn’t stop our families from offering up their suggestions. I’ll never forget The King’s mom suggesting to me that we name the baby Michael. She told me she’s always loved that name and that The King’s younger sister also loved the name. (If they both loved it so much, why didn’t either of them use it? Yeah, why not?!)

Oh I bet my Mother-in-law about died when she found out that Babboo’s name wasn’t even sort of anything close to Michael. (Bless her heart.)

My mom was so convinced that we would name Babboo after Rhett Miller that she made a little sign for his crib that said “Rhett”. For reals. (The sign also had stickers of monster trucks all over it. Apparently my mom thinks I’m a Rhett Miller stalker that lives somewhere in the south.) Yeah, we didn’t name him Rhett.

And we won’t be naming Rerun “Rhett” either.

My sister e-mailed me earlier this week. It said something like “Are you really going to name the new baby Rerun?”

Dude, AS IF!

So here we are. With no name for our baby boy. And since the pressure is so high we’ve chosen to just not discuss it.

I’m sure we’ll find The Perfect Boy Name II.

In the mean time I’ll pour over Sudoku books instead of baby naming books.

So tell me, am I the only one addicted to Sudoku?

(See how easily I was swayed away from thinking about it?)

(I beg of you to NOT suggest any boy names in the comments. The King and I want to figure it out on our own. We want to provide a good story to tell him how we named him and not “the interweb named you”.)

(Please.)

(Seriously, I will delete all name suggestions. And then I’ll be forced to not even use it. And what if it’s The Perfect Name and you’ve stopped us from using it? You don’t want that on you.)

In the grand scheme of things, he was very much planned. Just maybe not for that specific month.

When I found out I was pregnant with Babboo we had just returned from a glorious (and topless) vacation in Tulum, Mexico. I thought my period was so late because of the international traveling.

Or because of all the fish tacos I ate.

(Have you ever eaten a fish taco from a street vendor in Mexico? If not, I highly recommend it.)

My period was late and I wasn’t too concerned. You see, I had spent the last seven months pregnant. I knew what being pregnant felt like. I knew what day I ovulated. Day 14, just like most women. I knew what days I had participated in acts that would render me knocked-up.

As far as I was concerned, I was not pregnant. Being pregnant was not on my radar.

If you’re new here to holaisabel.com you might have missed the few times where I mentioned that Babboo was actually my third pregnancy. After experiencing two miscarriages at 9 weeks pregnant I discovered that I am the proud recipient of a genetic blood disorder that allows my body to self-abort fetuses.

After discovering why my body kept rejecting perfectly good babies and learning how to avoid the repeat occurrence, The King and I decided to hold off on trying to make another baby. At this point we knew that I could get pregnant at the drop of a hat (you know, a hat covered in semen). We also knew that going through yet another miscarriage might physically break our hearts in two.

And so we had stopped thinking about babies and the art of making babies. At least until the hole in our hearts healed.

Months passed and we slowly forgot pushed the memory of our miscarried babies out of our minds. I boxed up the few pieces of maternity wear I had purchased. I put away my copy of “What to Expect When You’re Expecting” and life went back to normal.

I looked at my planner. Again. And then again. I checked the dates and noted my markings. (Like most woman who are of baby-making age, I was a pro at tracking my cycle, even though we weren’t actively trying to get pregnant. Dude at this point we were actively trying to not get pregnant.) Since I had the two pregnancies to prove it, I knew without a showdown of a doubt what day I ovulated. And honey, my notes indicated that nothing sex-ay had occurred near those dates.

And yet, still no visit from my monthly friend visitor nuisance.

On a whim I bought my one and only pregnancy test from The Dollar Store we passed on the way to dinner with friends who lived in the ‘burbs.

As I recall I took the test the next day. Or maybe even the day after that. What was the hurry? While it was a little daunting to find a cup I wanted to pee in and very confusing to figure out how to mix the powders and what to use to dip, I was pretty sure I took the test correctly.

After the allotted time I got the No Loser, You Aren’t Pregnant! message from my $1 pee stick. I went and informed The King and patiently waited for my period to start flowing. Fifteen minutes later and still no period. (Hey, I honestly thought it was all psychological and as soon as I knew I wasn’t pregnant, my period would arrive.) Eventually I went back to the bathroom and more specifically, the trash can.

I looked at the pee stick again. Against my better judgment. I knew they pregnancy test people say to never look at “delayed results”. But um, my $1 pregnancy stick was now very surly stating that I was with child.

I was horrified. How had this happened? I mean, besides the whole “semen meet egg” thing, how did this happen? I was a pro at getting pregnant. I seriously knew, without a shadow of a doubt, what day of my cycle resulted in babies. I had control of my body and my fertility. I had proven it two previous times.

I told The King about our impending parenthood and with a blank look on my face I went back to my planner and rechecked my schedule (again!). Out of the corner of my eye I saw a little “x” on day 21 of my cycle.

For those of you that aren’t familiar with the key to my cycle schedule (and hey, why would you be), an “x” means I engaged in sexual activities that day.

I quickly flipped back to September. The month of my first conception. Yep, another “x” on day 21.

And then I looked at January. Day 21. Another damn “x”.

And now I looked at June and saw the third, and most recent “x”.

Day 21.

I had it all wrong. All this time I was dead a@@ wrong. Those months of tracking and counting and being so careful I had it wrong.

I was like one of those pregnant teenagers that realizes that you can, in fact, get pregnant on your first time, or standing up, or in a hot tub, or any other myth out there.

We were okay with being pregnant again. While it was a shock and a surprise, clearly The King and I weren’t against having a baby together.

We were simply against miscarriages.

A quick call to my doctor assured us that this time, there would be no miscarriages. With the help of some simple vitamins and a few other things she pert near promised us that this pregnancy would grant us a take-home-baby.

And thus we looked forward to the upcoming 34 weeks with anticipation and hope.

Of course the pregnancy went off without a hitch and we got the best take-home-baby in the world. At least we think so.

I still keep my planner updated with a little “x” every now and again. And I remind myself that it’s day 21, not day 14.

DAY 21!

My dad is one of nine.

I am one of four.

The King is one of two.

Babboo is currently just one of one.

And, for now, that seems to work for us.

Nothing against only children, but I don’t want it to stay this way forever. Eventually I would like to see another positive pregnancy test. I would like to (and this is hard to even type) get huge and miserable and be pregnant again. I would like to choose another baby’s name and snuggle a newborn. I would like to breastfeed again. I’d also like for Babboo to have a younger sibling to play with tease and teach. I want to get adorable Christmas pictures of kids in front of the tree.

This is the easy part.

The hard part is trying to decide that we’re ready to deal with no sleep. Or waking up every few hours to breastfeed. Or taking away our precious time with Babboo. Or pumping in the closet at work. And let’s not even talk about daycare. Because dude, that alone may convince us to never have another child.

And I hate that.

I hate that outside issues are the deciding factors in us expanding our family. I hate that money rules the decisions. I hate that we’re not getting any younger. Hate.

When really all I want is to add more love to our lives.

Even if we can move past all of these other issues, how do you know when it’s the right time to have another baby? I figure it would be good to get pregnant the same time as before. That way I’ll have the correct season of maternity clothes. And if it’s a boy, all of Babboo’s clothes will work. (Oh yes, this is how my mind works.) This plan sounds good on paper. But dude, that isn’t that far off. I’m not sure that I’m ready. And although I can get pregnant just by looking The King in the eyes, it’s keeping the babies that is hard.

Let’s be honest, I’m not sure that I’m ready to deal with any more miscarriages.

Plus, I just can’t seem to think of Babboo as anything other then my baby. How can I be ready for another baby when I already have a perfectly good baby?

And then I see a picture like this and realize he isn’t such a baby anymore.

And I long for pictures like this.

So tell me, what is the mathematical equation to determine when to have another baby?*

*Extra credit points to those who can also determine the equation on deciding how many kids to have.