naming remorse (and some updates)

Apparently baby naming remorse is becoming more and more common. My favorite blog, The Baby Name Wizard, just had a two-part series on this. Here's the part of the blog article that I found most fascinating:

Historically, names in the English-speaking world were a relatively constrained set, with a small collection of classic names dominating. In England in 1800, the top three names for boys and girls accounted for more than half of all babies born . . . By 1950 in the United States, you needed 79 names (through Gregory for boys, Paula for girls) to get the same population coverage that those six names achieved in England in 1800. Today, it would take 546 different names, including names like Raegan, Yaretzi, Jace and Heaven.

I hear so many people (Mike and I included) who don't want to choose a top-10 baby name - or even a top-100 baby name - for fear that it will be "too common." (We all have memories of being in elementary school with Jennifer R, Jennifer S, Jennifer M, and Jennifer T, right?) But the top names - however you define that - really don't account for that large of a percentage of all babies at this point. So there's a chance that our baby will have to be "Baby B" in elementary school, but that's much (much!) less likely than it would have been even a generation or two ago.



And in other news....
We had our 36-week appointment today. I'll find out next week (we're on to weekly appointments now!) whether I tested positive for Group B Strep, which would mean that I need antibiotics during labor (this happens for about 30% of pregnant women, and totally isn't a big deal as long as you get the antibiotics - otherwise it can be very, very bad for Baby). That was the first "exciting" thing about this week's exam. The second "exciting" thing about this week's exam was that I had my first internal exam...and hopefully my last. Holy cow it hurt - it felt like she was trying to take the internal route to massaging my lungs. Ow!!! It was interesting to hear that I'm "fingertip dilated" (i.e., less than 1 cm) and 50% effaced...

...and that Baby is at a +2 or +3 station (I don't know if I'm using that lingo correctly. Also, I think I'm confused about the stations, because I thought she said that a +2 meant that she hadn't dropped down yet, but this image from a random website shows that the positive stations are further descended. I don't know.)

HOWEVER, a big caveat to all this is that it tells us absolutely nothing about when I might go into labor - it could be tomorrow, or it could be at 42 weeks. So now I'm seriously thinking about skipping the next couple internal exams to (a) avoid the pain and (b) prevent myself from worrying about what it all means, because apparently it means nothing. Baby will make her appearance whenever she's ready, regardless of her current station and my current dilation and effacement. I hear that patience is a virtue toward the end of pregnancy.


And, in completely different news, Mike and I went to the Orchestra tonight and heard the world premiere of a brand new classical piece that was microcommissioned especially for the MN Orch. It was so fun! And tomorrow night we're looking forward to attending a Roller Derby. (Yes, we apparently have very eclectic tastes!!) My only other goals for the weekend are (1) to get some rest!!!, (2) to pack my hospital bag!!, and (3) to catch up on the work that I've been too tired to do for the last two days because I haven't been sleeping well and I'm super exhausted all the time. It's supposed to be beautiful (70s and sunny!) here this weekend, so hopefully I can get out and enjoy the weather too. Hope you all have a great weekend!