Picking 'Connor' and Kicks!

Well, the news is out!  We're having a little boy in May!  We now anxiously await the arrival of Mr. Connor Michael Voss.  :)

I know I titled this particular post "Kicks" so you assumed you would be reading about Connor's recent movements, and I'll get to that.  But first, I'd like to talk a little about his name and the process of picking it.  :)

When we were pregnant with Avery, before we had our anatomy scan, I worried that maybe my gut was wrong and that we were having a boy instead of a girl.  So Michael and I scrambled to come up with a name in case we found out Avery was a boy.  The name we picked back then was Luke James Voss (biblical, right?).  I loved the name Luke, but had a strong distaste for the name Lucas.  After we found out Avery was a girl, like I thought, we put Luke on the backburner for the next baby.

Between the time that we found out Avery was a girl and the time we got pregnant with Connor a couple things happened.  A friend of mine, who had been dating a guy named Luke, broke up with him, and a friend from Cru had a baby boy and named him Luke (surprisingly enough, I didn't know any other baby Luke's before).  So for me, that was enough to put the name out of the running.

As for a middle name, I've always wanted to use my husband's first or middle name (even before I had a husband) as my son's middle name.  Michael and James are both good, solid, and traditional names, so I knew either would work for my son.  But as we began looking for boy names, I took inventory around me and noticed A LOT of boys and men with the middle name of James.  My husband (Michael James), my brother-in-law (Adam James), my cousin's husband (Josh James), my nephew (Dayton James), my cousin's son (Hudson James), and my other nephew (Payden James) all have James as a middle name.  And while they name is awesome, obviously, that was A LOT!  So we began leaning towards Michael as a middle name.  Then there would be no mistaking who he would be named for.  ;)

It took us a while to find the name Connor.  I really liked Nolan and held onto it for a long time.  We tossed around some traditional names and some non-traditional ones.  We looked through a lot of lists and discussed names frequently and at length.  When we came to Connor we liked it, but decided to roll it around for a while to see if we loved it, and it stuck.  :)  So Connor Michael was chosen, and we had our boy name FINALLY picked!  Of course, the girl name came easy, and if we'd found out we were having a girl Kennedy Mae would have been her name.  :)  But we went and had our anatomy scan and found out, to our delight, that a baby Connor was on the way.  :)

Ok, I'm going to have to change the title of this blog, because waaaaaaay more of it is about Connor's name than is going to be about him kicking me, lol!

Today I felt Connor moving a lot more.  Actually, not moving so much as actually kicking me.  And, to make it even better, he was kicking me hard enough that I could feel it on the outside of my stomach!  :)  I was sooooo excited!  I waited until he'd kicked me 4 or 5 times before I called Michael in and asked him to feel.  And while Connor did kick right into his Daddy's hand a couple of times, the movements are still very small and delicate, so Michael couldn't feel it.  But the movement I felt today give me hope that in the next week or so Michael should be feeling his son move for the first time!  :D 

This begins a very exciting stage of the pregnancy for us!  It makes things so much more real when we can feel the baby moving.  It makes it easier to believe and more exciting.  It also reminds me that there is a living person inside of me, which is just plain weird, if you think about it.  ;)  Things are going to be so much more fun from here on out!  I'm going to worry so much less from here on out!  Praise the Lord!!  I am just so thrilled!!

Thank you again to those of you who have been thinking of and praying for Michael and I as we've been going through our pregnancy.  We appreciate it very much!  Please continue to pray with us as we complete the 2nd half of our pregnancy and embark on our new journey parenting two little children.  :)  It should be an adventure (to say the least).  :)  We love you very much and look forward to hearing from you and updating you more as the pregnancy progresses.  :)

Love you!!  And have a blessed remainder of 2013!  :)