2003-05-30 - 11:01 a.m. - Cycle day: 26 weeks, 5 days

Well, this has been fun. I've spent the entire last week sick with what would ordinarily be a meager little summer cold, but which has blossomed in my suppressed immune system and knocked me on my pregnant ass. It started as a tight, itchy throat and developed to a point where my sinuses were completely blocked, my lungs were rattling, my voice was lost and my energy level hit an amazing new low. I actually called in sick the other day. Perhaps I should remind you that I work at home. I spend all my working hours within five feet of a couch. I have a cordless phone and a wireless Internet connection. Yet I got to a point where I knew I was completely useless and not even modern technology or the comforts of home could make me productive.

It wouldn't have been so bad if I could have taken something to ease my congestion or take the edge off my sore throat. I emailed Dr. Hippie to find out what medications would be safe, and he recommended Chlortrimeton. Problem is, that's an antihistamine. And since my sickness was from a bug and not from allergies, it was totally useless. It may have even made things worse for a while - I swear my nose went into lockdown within an hour of taking the stuff. So I've just been suffering through it, with nothing stronger than Luden's Wild Cherry cough drops to soothe me.

Good news is, the baby doesn't seem to mind. I've been feeling totally fine from the sternum down. Well, except for those two sneezes that woke me up in the middle of the night and made me forget proper abdomen motion. Both times, I unconsciously pulled myself up with my abs while sneezing, then dropped back into bed nearly crying from the pain and sure I'd ripped something. Tip for other sick, pregnant moms: sleep on your side and curl inward when sneezing. Even the pain from that went away, though. Baby movement has been fine, although seemingly just a little less than usual. I don't know how much of my illness gets passed along, but since I don't hear any moaning from my belly, I can only assume that the peanut doesn't have it as bad as I do.

In other news, I think we've decided on names. Or at least come much closer. We're not telling any of our offline friends, but I'm so happy with these that I have to share it somehow. For a girl, we like Morna Helaine, and for a boy, Abraham Dallas. The first names are both just random picks that we both like, and the middle names have family significance - our mothers' middle names are Helen and Elaine, and The Husband is a descendant of George Mifflin Dallas, namesake of the city. One of the best tools I discovered in this whole baby naming ordeal is the website maintained by the Social Security Administration, which allows you to view the most popular names of, well, ever. My favorite feature was the ability to search for a name over a decade, so you can see how its popularity is changing. I'm obsessed with picking a non-trendy name, so this was tremendously useful. Morna didn't even make the top 1000 names at any point in the last decade, and Abraham has been holding steady in the low 200s. Compare that with, say, Olivia - a name I really like (mostly because it's the name of the town where my parents grew up), but which has moved from #62 to #10 in the last decade. You can even see exactly how many babies were given a particular name in that year, so if you're as weird as me, you can determine the mathematical probability that someone else in your child's kindergarten class will have the same name. I'm sure that people with more common names don't fixate on things like this, but I really enjoyed growing up with a name that was all mine, and that's something I hope to pass on to my child.

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