Challenges of a Deployment Pregnancy

When DH and talked about trying for a baby before he deployed, we realized that there would be challenges if we were successful.

We knew that no amount of photographs and updates could ever make up for him actually attending ultrasounds and being able to feel the baby kick.

We knew that it would be a struggle for me to get the nursery together as my strength fades and restrictions on what I should and should not do expand.

We knew that the hormonal ups and downs might be exacerbated by the loneliness of deployment.

We knew that he would not be able to help me through the physical aches and pains of the pregnancy.

So far, we've actually done a good job with all of these things...

Don't laugh, one of the biggest challenges (beyond my habitual hypochondria) has actually been selecting a name for our little miracle.

Bandying names back and forth on e-mail just does not quite cut it!

Since we aren't sure DH will make it for the birth, we did not want to wait until we saw baby girl's beautiful face.

Once we got down to three choices, we considered allowing the cats to have input--after all, Calypso did a good job selecting her own name. I'm not sure that would have made as cute of a story though.

The cat chose her own name = cute.

We let the cat name the baby = weird.

Well, I think we have a name finally! I'll post it later next week.