June 27, 2007
No Penelope for Me
The first lie! Number seven is false. When I was pregnant I did not think I was having a girl nor did I want to name a daughter Penelope. At least not entirely.
From a very young age, say 10 years old, I knew that I wanted to be a mother someday. Hell, if I could have had a child in high school, I very well may have done so. Life would have been extremely difficult and my parents would have disowned me, but I couldn’t wait to have children.
My mother would scold me and tell me to stop wishing my life away. She always said that things happen in our lives on their own time and that patience is a virtue.
I’m not a patient person. I try to be. I pray for God to grant me patience all the time. That in itself is irony, don’t you think?
When Doug and I got engaged, I wanted my wedding to hurry up and be over with so we could work on the babymaking. Needless to say, my awful fertility troubles didn’t end just because I told them to. We tried everything the doctors suggested, even the fertility drug Clomid, in hopes of having a child.
After 2 unsuccessful years and no pregnancy, I had given up hope. It was the Atkins diet that eventually got me pregnant and I won’t even tell you why I even tried it (food deprivation made me cranky) but I managed to lose 40 pounds on the diet and was pregnant after three months of cursing bread and pasta. Coincidence or luck, who knows? I was finally having a baby and life was perfect again.
In the first three months of pregnancy I was tired, cranky and suffered mild but frequent bouts of morning sickness and I had stranged dreams that I was having a girl. But I knew deep in my belly, a baby boy was growing. I had always wanted a boy first.
My mother had my youngest brother when I was 12 years old and I was familiar with changing diapers and making bottles and holding baby Frank. I supposed I just expected that I would have a son.
Even when I had my ultrasounds, and little Dawson wouldn’t cooperate so we could find out his gender, I knew it was a boy. I only chose boy’s names from the baby books.
It wasn’t until my 7th month that someone asked what name we had chosen if the baby was a girl. I joked around and said Esther and that person offered the name Penelope. I just laughed (and rolled my eyes when the person wasn’t looking).
I eventually found out I was having a boy in a last minute ultrasound right after I was diagnosed with pre-eclampsia at 32 weeks. My wish had come true and my little Dawson was born.
Congrats to Karen and Nadine. You are correct yet again!
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June 27th, 2007 at 12:25 pm, Mrs. Chicken Says:
hey dana, i’m so psyched we are paired up for the blog exchange! can you shoot me an email?
July 4th, 2007 at 9:22 am, Leslie Says:
When I was pregnant with Julia, I had no doubt she’d be a girl. Dave and I were both so certain. Her name was picked before we knew for sure. As for boys names, we just made jokes - like Merv Grimmett and Gobe Juan Grimmett and Kermit Grimmett. It isn’t that I didn’t want a boy, I was just so sure I was having a girl!
July 5th, 2007 at 9:01 pm, d5e21fb3a7af83dc1d6f3f32ad7d6c1f Says:
d5e21fb3a7af83dc1d6f3f32ad7d6c1f…
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