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.

In honor of this special day, I finally present you with the birth story, that I should have posted a long time ago.

Click to read the story and see a video of his first year on this earth.

Being 8 days overdue should be against the law.

We were schedule for the induction on Sunday the 16^th. Easter Sunday, when we would rather be at Church or with our family. We were told to wait by the phone. We were told not to call them. They would call us. But they didn’t call us on Sunday. Or Monday. It wasn’t until later Monday that I finally called my doctor. Just to remind her that yes, we were still waiting. My doctor was at the hospital and told us she’d she what was going on. The hospital finally called us and asked if we were still interested in coming in for an induction. Still interested? Yeah, we were interested in having this baby. I asked the nurse on the phone if it was all right if we were there in an hour. Which she said was fine.

I had heard rumor that you should take a shower right before you go into the hospital, because it might be the last one you get for a few days. I needed some time for what might be my last shower of the week.

I showered, did my hair and make-up, put on some cute clothes, grabbed our hospital bag and we headed to the hospital. We got there at about 6:30 pm.

It was a little alarming how fast they got us into our room, my clothes off and me hooked up to the monitors to track my contractions. They were already five minutes apart. The nurses were surprised when I told them I couldn’t feel anything. Apparently I was having regular contractions and was probably in the early stages of labor already.

I began to question why I wasting my time putting make-up on or even combing through my hair. I just knew we were there for the long haul and that I would be cursing my make-up in about 8 hours. Or 8 minutes, for that matter.

The nurses gave me the pitocen and left The King and I alone in our hospital room. I’m pretty sure we were both in shock. Mostly because it all just happened so fast. Within a few minutes the nurse came in and asked if I was ready for them to call for my epidural. Which I wasn’t. Hey, this is easy. It doesn’t hurt at all. I can totally do this.

The nurse really pressured me, saying that it would take about 20 minutes for the anesthesiologist to get here once they called him. I looked over at The King who was sitting at the foot of the bed. “No, we’re fine. I can handle this for a little longer.” Again the nurse pressured me to call for my epidural. I figured that she must know something I didn’t. I told her to go ahead and call for the anesthesiologist.

The anesthesiologist was there in 20 minutes, like promised. And pretty much it was about 18 minutes too late. By this time I was feeling the contractions and they hurt. They hurt more than any pregnancy books have ever said. They hurt more than I could have imagined. I kept looking over at The King with this upsetting scared look on my face. He didn’t know what to do, how to help me.

When I felt the first contraction I knew I had made a mistake with this whole pregnancy thing. It hurt so bad that I wasn’t sure how I was going to deal with this. I knew my own limitations and I knew that if I had to put up with that for any length of time I would have to die. Seriously, why didn’t any of you all tell me how bad contractions hurt?

I didn’t feel the epidural go in. I was too busy hoping it would start working before I had to feel yet another contraction. Before I jumped sky high and was forever paralyzed. It only took moments for the pain to go away, for the feeling in my legs to leave. I was instantly calm and confident again.

Okay, I can do this.

We knew we’d better try to get some sleep. We knew it was still going to be a while before the baby was born. We’d read the books and attended the classes, so we knew what was going on. The King made himself a little bed on the cot next to me and I relaxed in my hospital bed. We were able to get as good of a night as sleep as you can with someone coming in every hour to check your cooch.

I was progressing nicely for the first few hours of labor. But as would be my luck, eventually I stopped progressing as nicely. I didn’t care since I was too focused on getting some sleep. I figured that the baby was going to come, so what if he didn’t come until morning-when I would be well-rested.

The night nurse was so great and really made us both feel at ease. She was a young, upbeat girl, and I liked that. She kept telling me what a good job I was doing and how proud of me she was. Heck, I could do this in my sleep. Oh wait, I was. She also told me that the baby’s heart seemed to slow down with each contraction. Fortunately, they weren’t worried about it. Phew

Around 9:00 the next morning the doctor who was working that day came to check on us. She wasn’t my regular doctor and I was a little sad about that. I realized that my doctor, the doctor who had been so wonderful during my miscarriages and my pregnancy, wouldn’t be the one to deliver my baby. This new doctor was very lovely, but she wasn’t what I was used to. She wasn’t the person I had assigned to this role during countless daydreams about the birth of my baby.

Dr. New (as we’ll call her) again told us that the baby’s heart rate was a little questionable. Again, nothing that she was worried about. So we didn’t worry. After a few minutes of small talk she said, “I think it’s time for you to push.” I was taken aback by how calm she was. What? You want me to push? Now? You mean we’re about to have a baby? A real baby? Holy crap!

Two nurses came in and joined Dr. New. They were my cheer section and they were great. I pushed when they told me to and I felt great when they assured me I was doing an impressive job. I kept pushing. It was easy. I was sure this baby would just slide out in no time. I kept my eye on the clock, just to see how fast I could push this baby out. I wanted to be one of those ladies that is all; I only had to push 2 times before the baby came out.

I started to push at 10:00 exactly. I remember when the clock showed 11:00. That hour felt like 7 minutes. It literally flew by. An hour into it and I was still pushing. I was trying so hard to get this baby out. The King was next to me the entire time telling me how proud he was. He even said “I can’t believe you’re doing this.”

I also didn’t feel a thing. Really. Not a thing.

A little after 11:00, Dr. New said that things weren’t going so well. We were surprised since things seemed to be going famously on my end. Even my nurses said I was doing a great job. The doctor said that the baby seemed to be in distress. His heart was slowing down. He wasn’t moving down the birth canal. He was all turned around, and stuck.

We were told we had two options at this point. Either we could opt for a C-section and start on that process immediately, or the doctor could try to manually roll the baby over and see if that would set things back in motion. The doctor told us that if we went for option 2 and it didn’t work, we may end up with an emergency C-section.

I turned to look at The King. I wanted the two of us to quietly and calmly discuss our options and decide what we felt was best for our little family. I never wanted to have a C-section. I especially didn’t want one after all that we had been through already. The doctor informed us we didn’t have time to think about this. We needed to decide NOW.

I told her I didn’t want a C-section, but that we trusted her and wanted her to do whatever she could to make sure that the baby and I were safe. We told her we wanted to go with option 2. We wanted to try to get this stuck baby, well, unstuck.

The doctor told us she would have made the same choice. I breathed a sigh of relief knowing that my first decision as a mother wasn’t the wrong one. She told me to stop pushing and she quickly proceeded to try to use both hands to manually turn the baby over in the birth canal. You can only imagine how this is done.

I didn’t feel a thing. Really. Not a thing.

The King looked at me with complete horror in his eyes. His face was completely white when he said, “are you sure you can’t feel that?” I was sure. I didn’t feel a thing. He later told me it looked very painful and very horrible. Again, I can only imagine.

The doctor had managed to turn the baby over. I started to push again, which is a million times easier then not pushing. The baby immediately turned himself back over and got stuck again with the first contraction. His heart rate also continued to slow down with each contraction.

I would have to have an emergency C-section. I began to cry uncontrollably. I felt like a failure, especially after I had labored all night and pushed for over two hours. Through my tears I told The King to call my mom. She was waiting with The King’s mom at their house.

They rolled me into the operating room. Within about 5 minutes I was hooked up to even more machines and had even more tubes coming out of both arm. The King was on my left side and the anesthesiologist was on my right side. He assured me that this would take less than 10 minutes. I was crying and The King kept wiping the tears off of my face with a tissue.

It was all too fast. It had literally been minutes since I had been in my hospital room pushing. Minutes since I was on my way to having a baby the way I had originally planned. But now here I was strapped to a bed with tons of strangers standing over me, looking at my naked body and huge belly.

I was so scared. The King had to be scared, but he seemed so calm. He made me calmer, as best as he could. He was literally my hero. I just kept looking at him in the eyes. I didn’t look away. I couldn’t look away.

The anesthesiologist told me that I would feel “touch and pressure, touch and pressure”.

I felt them cut me. I felt them pulling at the baby to get him out of the birth canal. Touch and pressure, my ass. I felt it. It hurt. I was still crying when I turned towards the anesthesiologist and told him this was taking way longer than the 10 minutes he has promised me. I started to scream. I was hurting. I was scared out of my mind.

I knew when he was born. I felt them stop pulling at the baby inside me. I saw The King’s face when he saw the baby for the first time. He immediately started to cry. I asked him if he was okay and he said he was. They took his little body over to examine him. I could just see him, but he looked miles away and all fuzzy without my glasses on. I told myself that I could pass out now. I had seen the baby and knew all was well. The King left my side to go over to get a closer look.

I closed my eyes and went to sleep.

I woke up what felt like 5 hours later. I was back in my original hospital room. I could see our mom’s standing over by the window trying to stay out of the way. I saw The King and a nurse with the baby at the foot of the bed. The nurse brought him over to me and put him to my right breast. She helped him latch on. Which he did without any problems. I was in a daze, but awake enough to still know what was going on, to know that I wasn’t comfortable with our mom’s seeing my boobies. The King told me it had only been about 30 minutes. Our mom’s must have rushed to the hospital.

Our mom’s wanted to know what his name was. Yeah, so did we, since we still weren’t sure. We really hadn’t come to a final decision before he was actually born. I looked at The King and said “is it?” He said it sounded good to him. It was hard for me to say the name out loud after keeping it such a secret for so long. I don’t think I had ever even said it out loud before.

“His name is Babboo.”

And then I went back to sleep.

(The final belly shot.)

That, my friends, was probably that last uninterrupted sleep I’ve had in the last year.

(The video was removed. E-mail me at holaisabel at gmail dot come if you missed it and still want to see it.)