So this should keep you all guessing as to what the names we kept were.  The requirements Nathan and I had were very different.  I wanted a name that was different.  I don't want our children to be one of 3 or 5 or more in their class with the same name and be forced to take a nickname to be different, like being called Frazier.  And the name has to have a good meaning, personally or traditionally.  Personally I mean like paying tribute to someone close to us, like Lauren's middle names Maxine and Beryl our paternal mothers' names (I think that's right, our grandmothers on our fathers side).  Traditionally like Lauren meaning "the bay or laurel plant" and she really has lived up to that name.  Laurels are some fast growing plants and she is a fast growing girl!  I wanted her to be strong and resilient with deep roots and high aspirations.  So my requirement was that the name couldn't have been in the top 20 (really I would have liked the top 50) in the last 5 years. 

Nathan is much more a traditional kind of guy when it comes to names.  And also his perception of unique is much different than mine when it comes to names.  Growing up in Australia he didn't meet another Nathan until he was older, where as Nathan here was a pretty popular name.  He also grew up in an area with a large Jewish population so there were a lot of typical Jewish names, (even more Jewish than his own Nathan David) which are not very common to me at all, but he was quite used to.  So when he went to school there weren't a lot of kids with the names James, Rachel, Jessica, David, Jennifer, Ryan, Robert, etc compared to those I went to High School…well you all know how many there were you may be one of them, I was at least only one of 3 in my graduating class, instead of one out of 10 but it was still annoying.  So Nathan's requirement, it can't be TOO Unique, something in the top 50 would be nice.

So I didn't keep a list of the names Nathan suggested, but James, Rachel, Jessica, David, Jennifer, Ryan, and Robert, were among them.  I think Kelly, and Allison were also in there.  The names I suggested were: Aspen, Edison, Forrest, Cedar, Bracken, Isle, Marine, Lakelann (Lochlan), Oceanna, Marcail, Dailey, Gael, Mallory, Kagan, Murel, Cress, Baradine, Ashby, Heath, Dundas, Hamilton, Merrit, Tuart, Elsie, Hazel, Fletcher, Porter, Werner.  All vetoed by Nathan.  Too strange, too hard to spell, too hard to pronounce, didn't want to name a child after a paddle (I really liked Werner, and their paddles are nice too), too easy to make nicknames up for (like Cooper, or Tucker) and most of them are well outside the top 50 names, some of them outside the top 100 names, and some aren't on the list at all.

We did settle on names, one girl, one boy with at least one middle name as well.  What are they?  Not saying…but they are between the top 20 and top 50 most popular names according to the SSA for the last 5 years.  So there ya go, if you are looking for a project, you can go through the names from the last five years and see what we picked, but we won't tell you if you are right or wrong until after July is born!

Such a big girl now.  In a big girl bed, picks out her own clothes, brings us diapers when she needs changing (yup potty training is coming soon), tells us when she is ready for bed, and even goes to sleep (and sleeps through the night) on her own.  We are so lucky.

Lauren saw Dr Beth today and our thoughts were just enforced more, she is always impressed at how advanced she is for her age, size, verbal skills, and her gross and fine motor skills, she is now about the size of an average 27 month old.  No wonder we are in the 2T clothes already.  We'll see if she starts leveling off on that curve, if not the few 3T outfits will come in very handy sooner rather than later.

Official measurements.
Head – 48.25 cm – 90th percentile
Height – 34" – 97th percentile (I thought she was going to be a little taller)
Weight – 26.2lbs – 80th percentile

We got the go ahead to start potty training if Lauren was interested, but she also told us that she would probably regress a little when July baby comes.  We also talked to her about not staying at the hospital any longer than we absolutely have to and she was ok with that.  With being Group B Strep positive she would like to see at least two rounds if not three of antibiotics before baby is born (with Lauren I had one, there wasn't time for any others), but she said that even if we don't she knows we would absolutely bring baby in if we thought he was getting sick.  We are just supposed to remind her when time gets close so she can talk to the other docs in her group in case she isn't around on the day baby is born.  Everything was good good good.  Even though we didn't have an appointment in the book.  When I scheduled Lauren's first H1N1 vaccine shot I also scheduled her 18-month check up and her 2nd shot to coincide…well apparently the appointment was never entered on their system, but they got us right in, really Dr Beth and her nurse Karen are the best.

After re-telling our experience to a few friends they suggested we write a letter to the manager.  We got a phone call today (3/2) that the person we had addressed the letter to was not the manager, but she was passing it along to the appropriate person.  In the end everything is fine (or so we believe, we'll have to see what the report says when we meet with our midwives), but this is not the experience one should have when having their ultrasound.

I was told by your staff that you are the manager of the TRA facility on Lily. I would like to share our experience of our last ultrasound, a 20 week fetal ultrasound, which took place on Tuesday 23^rd February. We believe the technicians name was Shari, although she never did introduce herself.  That is the name we believe was on the certificates hanging on the wall of the room we were in.

Let me start by saying during our other two pregnancies we had a lovely tech, whose name eludes me. Unfortunately this experience left us both upset, we wish we could have requested the tech we had on prior experiences.

We had our 18 month old daughter with us, and the first thing the technician told us was that if she made a fuss I would be asked to leave with her. Her tone and demeanor, almost instantly upset our daughter, who prior to this point had been in an excellent mood and was engaging with your front desk staff and other patients in the waiting room.  We had prepped her for what to expect from the ultrasound by talking about what would happen and showing her photos from her ultrasounds as well as photos of pregnant women having ultrasounds done.

My wife was asked if she wanted to know the sex. Which we did. I was in the room too. It was our decision, not only my wife.  I understand that my wife is the patient, but we are both the parents.  The next thing we were asked was how many pregnancies we had had. This is our third. We lost our twins with our first pregnancy at 23 weeks. The technician then looked at our daughter and asked how many live births we had. With absolutely no feeling. She seriously needs some sensitivity training. At that point we probably should have asked for another technician. I suggest she attends a PS Support Group meeting so she understands what it is like to lose a child.

Our daughter continued to cry, so I let her get down on the floor and she walked toward the wall monitor and the tech snapped at us that she shouldn’t be allowed to wander around the room, so I stood with her by the wall monitor and she started to calm down but I was asked to leave anyhow. Not the experience we had all looked forward to. I was extremely disappointed, as was my wife. I came back in a few minutes later, as my daughter instantly calmed down on leaving the room. On entering the room again she started crying and I asked if the sex had been determined yet. It had not, and the technician looked and told us. No joy in her voice at all.  I then left the office completely and waited in the car with my daughter.

When my wife arrived back at the car she shared that the technician was in no better mood for the rest of the ultrasound. In fact she was berated for drinking too much water because the tech kept having her go to empty her bladder.  She informed the technician that she had drunk no more than the 24 ounces prescribed, and then she was left laying on the table in the room with the technician leaving saying, “If you can wait there, I need to talk to the radiologist about something.”  Now again, as parents who have lost children, that is one of the scariest things that we could have heard.

We shared our experience with a number of friends, and all said we should notify the office of our experience. We are lucky enough to know we just got horrible service. First time parents would be left with a different perspective.  In contrast to the other tech we have had it was like night and day.  The previous tech we had would tell us what she was looking at, why, what was normal for this stage in development, the measurements she was taking, if we wanted photos of different things, etc.  This tech did not tell us anything about what she was doing, measuring, or looking at.  Only from past experiences did my wife know what she was looking at.  The tech selected the photos to print, and my wife said there were some great ones that she would have liked to have.