The Coming Child arrived at 11:01 am, December 17th, happy and healthy. Mama and baby are doing fine.
Linnaea prefers nights to days, which is a bit hard on her parents, but we hope she'll get on our schedule soon. We will continue to post weekly photos, now of Linnaea! The inch worm is courtesy of her Auntie Cathy and cousin Maggie, who visited us last week and provided a ton of help and support.
Today at the grocery store, I ran into our friends Dave and Mary, and their daughter Ella, who is 8 or 9.
Dave asked if we could use a gliding-style rocking chair, I said 'absolutely!' Mary joined us in the ice cream aisle, with Ella right behind.
"They'd like to take the rocking chair," Dave told Mary, who expressed excitement that they would free up some space. When she mentioned it to Ella, she was crestfallen.
"I like that chair!" she said.
Mary explained the situation. "Jim and Ivy are going to have a little baby soon. Wouldn't it be nice for them to have it?"
Ella brightened a little. "Okay. And maybe I could come visit!"
"Yes," I said. "That would be very nice. You could come and visit our daughter, and our dogs..."
Ella had turned away to look at something on one of the shelves.
Mary turned to me and whispered: "She means the chair."
This week we learned that two of our good friends, Chris and Jessica, are also expecting. We figured we were going to be the only ones in our social group to become parents, at least for the foreseeable future, so we worried a bit about drifting away our friends.
But now we'll have company. And more importantly, Linnaea will have a playmate!
As you can see from the weekly pictures, Ivy is big! Maybe... too big. The ob-gyn was concerned that Linnaea might be on the large side, which could make for a more challenging delivery.
So, today we went in for another ultrasound, and learned Linnaea is about the right size, an estimated 4 pounds 10 ounces, which during week 33 puts her at about the 60-percentile for size. The doctor estimated she might be 7 1/2 to 8 pounds at delivery. Ivy's size is due to a higher than normal amount of amniotic fluid, which we're told is nothing to worry about and a sign that the placenta is doing its job well.
She is head down and facing towards Ivy's back, just the position we want her in for delivery, which isn't far away!
And one last discovery... the coming child looks like she's going to have a head full of spiky hair (look for the arrow):
At the baby shower, one of our friends gave us a stuffed sheep that Linnaea will no doubt enjoy. Here's Ivy posing with it, in honor of Hug A Sheep Day!
Baby Linnaea is often active when Ivy is. She kicks or punches, or does somersaults, or whatever it is she's doing, while Ivy is walking, and oftentimes when Ivy stoops or stands.
A couple of weeks ago we took a weekend childbirthing class, where we learned lots of techniques for relaxing and influencing the baby's position during labor.
Ivy learned that a good position for her is squatting on the ground while I sit in a chair and support her. My hands rested on her belly as Ivy let herself sag. She seemed quite relaxed.
Not so Linnaea. I could feel her dissatisfaction. Bam! Bam! Bam!
Ivy giggled a little even as she tried to relax.
Bam!
More giggling.
Eventually both mother and daughter settled down and relaxed together.
Assuming the ultrasound prediction is correct (and we gather that it isn't always), the coming child's name will be: Linnaea Adoracion Kling.
Adoracion is her grandmother -- Ivy's mom. We want to raise her to know and understand both sides of her ancestry. Ivy is going to ensure that she will be bilingual in English and Tagalog (and I look forward to learning right along with our daughter), and we'd like to find a way for her to get some extended time in the Philippines during her formative years.
Naming her after her Lola Dory seemed a great way to honor that.
Lola Dory (Adoracion Ver Yap)
And I'm honored to have a wonderful mother-in-law, so I'm very pleased with her middle name.
Linnaea has two sources. She's indirectly named for Carl Linnaeus, known as the 'father of taxonomy' for developing a system to name and classify organisms. More directly, she is named for my favorite wildflower, called Twinflower, which is found on the forest floor here in the pacific northwest. The scientific name is Linnaea borealis.
Twin flower growing at Lake Padden in Bellingham
As the name 'borealis' suggests, twinflower occurs all along the northern tip of the northern hemisphere. It was supposedly one of Linnaeus' favorite plants, and a friend of his gave it its genus name Linnaea in honor of him. It has generally been placed in the honeysuckle plant family, but some taxonomists are now placing it in its own family: Linneaceae.
I take a lot of inspiration from music. My iPod has a favorites list that doesn't have too many songs on it, but I listen to them over and over again because they inspire me.
Two songs are particularly inspiring to me lately.
Just before we found out we were pregnant, I watched a video of a Jethro Tull concert at the Montreaux.
Ian Anderson, the flutist and lead singer of the band, performed a song that I fell in love with immediately. He called it Eurology. I've always loved Ian Anderson's rock 'n roll flute, but this song captivated me in a way that very few songs ever have.
When Ivy's home pregnancy test came up positive, I listened to the song again, and tears came to my eyes. The driving, galloping flute that opens the piece felt like that tiny embryo rushing to life. Soon after that starts a section of two flute parts in harmony, which made me think of Ivy and I, waiting and watching this tiny little person, waiting to love and care for her.
I've listened to Eurology countless times, and I feel chills every time.
Another song, much older, has resonated with me. Roll with the Changes, by REO Speedwagon, has always been one of my favorites. Now it has new meaning for me every time I listen to it, and I listen to it a lot lately.
The lyrics just about perfectly sum up how I feel about all this:
As soon as you are able, woman, I am willin' To make the break that we are on the brink of My cup is on the table, my love is spillin' Waiting here for you to take and drink of
So, if you're tired of the same old story, turn some pages I will be here when you are ready to roll with the changes
I knew it had to happen, felt the tables turnin' Got me through my darkest hour I heard the thunder clappin,' felt the desert burnin' Until you poured on me like a sweet sun shower
So, if you're tired of the same old story, turn some pages I will be here when you are ready to roll with the changes
In the midst of the 20-week ultrasound appointment, Ivy and I had a moment.
We'd just spent 45 minutes in the ultrasound room, watching a monitor as the instrument revealed pictures of our daughter. The profiles were cute, but lots of other bits of her anatomy weren't. Some of the pictures were downright creepy.
After the ultrasound, the nurse showed us to a room, took Ivy's blood pressure, and then left us alone. We discussed the images.
"The backbone was freaky," Ivy said. "You should have seen my face when I saw it."
She made a horrified face. I laughed. Then I had a thought. "Do it again. I want to post a picture. 'This is how Ivy looked when she saw the backbone.'"
"No. I can't do it now," she said.
I thought for a moment. Then I remembered the roll of pictures that the nurse gave us when we left the ultrasound room. I unfurled it. "Maybe it's in here. If I show it to you again, then can you do it?"
We were both laughing when the doctor tapped on the door and entered. "I see you two are having fun. This is always the funnest appointment in the pregnancy," she said.
On Monday, Ivy called me to say that she felt the baby today for the first time, at least the first time she was pretty certain that that was what she was feeling (and not indigestion or some other pregnancy symptom).
Wednesday was our 20-week ultrasound appointment. The nurse asked us if we wanted to know the sex. We told her we did, and she showed us the relevant picture, and asked us to perform the diagnosis.
Having no good idea what we were looking at, we both tentatively guessed it was a boy. Wrong! It's a girl!
That's good, because we had a girl's name picked out, but had made little progress on boy's names.
In the past two days, we each dreamed about the baby, and in both cases it was a girl, so I guess our subconsciouses knew something we didn't.
All of the tests and measurements came out normal.
When we decided to get married, Ivy and I went to get the blessing of Lola Priscila, Ivy's 90-year old grandmother and the family matriarch.
We were in Manila in April, and it was hot and humid. She lay on a bed in an upstairs bedroom, attended by a maid. She was sleepy when we first arrived, but seemed to perk up when she realized that this American wanted to marry her granddaughter.
Ivy made the announcement: "Lola, Jim and I are going to be married."
She smiled warmly at both of us, and then got a little twinkle in her eye. "Congratulations on the coming child!"
Ivy was scandalized. "Lola! I'm not pregnant!" she said, laughing.
Lola's smile widened. "I said 'the coming child.'"
That was in 2005.
I'm not a particularly spiritual person. I don't actually believe in souls, at least most days.
But sometimes I think back on Lola Priscila's words, and I think about the tiny baby girl growing inside Ivy, and I wonder whose soul might be in there.
