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It seems like a lot of RaisingBakersfield.com parents have been announcing impending additions to their families lately.  First, let me say, to you all, congratulations!  And second, well, who am I to spoil a trend?  Heh.

My wife [referred to on this blog as "la dra."] is 20 weeks pregnant--we're at the half-way mark!  We're due at the beginning of February.

The Pumpkin [my nom de blog for our now almost-4-year-old daughter since I started dadblogging when she was one] has been pulling for a girl since before we got pregnant.  Once we knew we were, we tried to get across the idea that we didn't really have much say in the matter, but she wasn't having it.  "I want a little sister!"  Finally, she started coming around, referring to her future sibling as "her or him."

But this week, we had our 20-week ultrasound.  You know, the one that's really to check on the development of things like limbs and stuff, but which everyone thinks is just to peek for evidence or absence of penile and testicular protrusions.  Of course, this isn't an exact science, and we've all heard stories of people convinced, by an ultrasound reading, that they were gonna have one thing and ended up getting a big surprise.  The Pumpkin herself was quite the uncooperative portrait-sitter in utero, giving us her back until seven months.  And even then, we tried to keep the possibility of a misreading in the back of our minds, just in case.

Well, this time, both my wife and her OB agree that there's a 95% chance that The Pumpkin's wish will be fulfilled.  [It's great being married to a doctor--for me, ultrasounds are like those Magic Eye posters from the early '90s, I could never ever see anything in those.]  Barring any unforseen tuckage, we're having another girl.

It's funny, though, as this pregnancy has been totally different for la dra. than when she was pregnant with The Pumpkin.  Real bad "morning" sickness then, not so much now; craving fruits and vegetables then, devouring meat now--that sort of thing.  And so, conventional wisdom says that when the second pregnancy is so different from the first, you're probably having a baby of whatever sex the first one isn't.  So we tried to come up with boy names, but just like last time, we couldn't come up with something we could agree on.

But, just like last time, we quickly devised and agreed upon an out-of-the-blue girl's first and middle name.  Now, it looks like we'll get to use it.

If, that is, we can get around The Pumpkin.  I mentioned her insistence on having a sister vs. a brother, right?  Well, she also came up with a name for said sister.  Tuzana.  Rhymes with "banana."  I have no idea where she came up with that one.  I don't even think there are any Susannahs at her preschool.  But anyway, she's been calling "baby" that for a while now, and now that we "know" it's a girl...  I tried to introduce the idea of the name we've chosen, and she said that she already had a name, Tuzana.  I tried to explain about nicknames or even personal family pet names, how this could be her special name for her.  She wasn't buying it.  "She has one name!"  Oy.  It's not like we could've included her by letting her choose between two names we liked or one name we liked and one name we knew she wouldn't choose--she'd already named her.  [At least, one friend reminded me, she'd moved on from her earlier choice in sibling names--Lion.]  I'm hoping that, just like she was able to get used to the idea of potentially having a brother, she'll get used to the idea that her sister's official name is not going to be Tuzana.  She's got a few months.  Heh.

But in her honor, baby's nom de blog will be, from now on, 2zana.  I'm so happy that so many of my fellow RaisingBakersfield.com parents are also getting ready to add to their families, and I can't wait to hear about it and chat with you all.