09-11-2009 - Movement

My mood while writing this blog: Happy

During week 19 (Nov. 4th - 10th) We have been able to feel "Cletus the Fetus" move with a hand on my abdomen. Albert was the first one early in the week to be able to feel him/her move. Even though this will be our 3rd child he was just as thrilled as he was 13 years ago. Mia ( 9yr old) and I were watching a movie together on Sat. and she was able to feel the movement of the baby and was SOOOO EXCITED... She yelled for her sister "Sister, I felt Cletus move", Blakely (a typical pre-teen, almost teen) was on the computer and just yelled back "Really??? Cool". Blakely has tried to be patient enough to feel the baby move but it hasn't been the right time yet for her. It is fun when the family gets involved. Some of my best moments have been watching my first two babies respond to this pregnancy.

OK, for those of you that are saying "Cletus the Fetus???" Let me give a little explaination:

We are a funny family, we create nicknames for nicknames; with eachother, our pets, etc. When my husband and I found out we were pregnant for the first time we felt compelled to call the baby something other than "baby, him, her or it". We found out with Blakely when I was about 4-5 weeks pregnant so we lovingly called her "Ziggy the Zygote" until we found out she was Blakely Suzann...

Our 2nd pregnancy Blakely was 2yrs old and she would call my pregnant belly "Sister, NOT brother..." She would kiss my bump and say "Hi, baby, Hi Sissy" So that was all relatively normal...

On to this pregnancy... flash forward 10 years and a lot of silliness later... Once the abosolute shock of being pregnant set in, the girls and I one day started calling this baby the fetus (they had been reading all the pregnancy books)... The first thing that came to mind and rhymed with fetus was Cletus... so we lovingly call this baby (male or female) Cletus or Cletus the Fetus... We crack ourselves up but it really seemed to solidify this new person as part of our crazy family.

Something I just learned during this past week. I was looking up origins of names, I am Greek and Scotch Irish with a little bit of this and that also thrown in. My husband is Hispanic. Anyway, my dad who was Greek passed away in March of 2008 and if we have a girl we are naming her in honor of him, Nikki... (anyone seen my big fat greek wedding? = ) ). My father's name was Nick and so is my only brother's. So anyway I was looking up the spelling and Nikki is the Greek spelling. I digress... On the way to Nikki I came across the C's and low and behold saw the name Cletus!!!! I had no idea it was in anyway a Greek name... and it also stood for "summoned". I almost fell on the floor, because Mia, my sweet 9 year old has been asking for this baby as long as she has been alive. She uses her birthday wishes and has wished on first stars too. She truly did summon this baby to our family because as far as I was concerned we were finished having babies. I have felt that my father sent this precious one to us from Heaven, I was so depressed after he died so between him and his special girl Mia Cletus the Fetus made his/her way to our lives whether we were ready or not...

I just wanted to have these thoughts recorded for this newest member of our family so that he/she doesn't think that I didn't have any thoughts or journals for this pregnancy. The third time is so different from the first two (for me anyway). I love keeping journals and writing about everything that is going on but have not been able to as I did with the others, so here it is so far and I will be writing more about the rest of this blessed pregnancy.