Thursday, October 24, 2013

Just a little over two weeks left!

That’s right~ I have just a few days over two weeks left of this pregnancy and I’m just about ready to give birth and yet, willing to wait it out until his due date. The physical demand of this pregnancy is much more difficult than my first and having experienced every bit of pregnancy I’m just about ready to wave the white flag. If the baby was born this month however, October is going to be one busy month for me in the years to come with the many birthdays and Halloween as its closure. I’m just planning ahead for the future guys. I mean I wouldn’t mind it if the baby decided to join the world in the next few minutes but like I said, I am willing to wait.

My body has been gradually and mercifully preparing me for labor though. I’ve been getting early pregnancy symptoms for the past week and a half with nausea being the first. Then came the “lightening” or “dropping”, sharp lower back pains, mood swings, and finally menstrual like cramps with added pressure on my lower back. I’m feeling all of these things I listed right now this very moment. It’s bearable but it drains so much energy out of me and I’ve been hibernating like a bear in winter. I have my 38th week prenatal appointment set for tomorrow so we’ll see how far along I am, or how closer I am to going into labor.

Ariel and I finally settled on a name! It took us the entire pregnancy to agree on a name because while I fancied biblical names, Ariel was more geared towards names that resonated strength and difference. Now, coming up with a middle name was a far more difficult task because I wanted a part of my lineage to be represented in his name.

Btw, I can trace my family ancestry all the way back to the late 800 AD. Pretty cool right? I kind of came across this knowledge while trying to come up with a middle name for the baby and I’m surprised I never bothered to ask my Dad about this! The clan that I come from is the Haepung Kim Clan that was started by some Koryo emperor that abdicated himself in favor of some other guy or something. I’m still not quite sure about the whole story of it all but it’s pretty darn neat knowing where I come from.

Okay, back to the name thing.

In Korean tradition, each generation is given a name/letter/syllable according to some clan chart. It helps keep track of which generation the baby might come from. In the case of this baby, it’s “Hui” or “Hee”. Then the child is given a true name where the name giver looks at the birth chart and balances out his/her weakness. Then there’s the surname for a total of three syllables. The name that I was given is Kim Yi-Rang [pronounced ee-rL-ah-ng]. My generation was supposed to be given the name “Jang” or something else (I think it was Chung?) but my Father opted out of this tradition because he thought it sounded hideous. Plus being born a Daughter, I don’t think it was really necessary. Kind of sexist but whatever, I’m happy my Dad opted out of that. I love the name that I was given.

I’ve been really struggling with Hui/Hee because it sounds a bit too feminine in Korean. All of the names I know with that in the syllable (I say syllable because Korean names are usually three syllables) are all females names. Having said that, I might opt out of this tradition as well and pull a letter/syllable/word out of my Grandfather’s name instead. My mind is still not set on this whole thing obviously…

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