The latest chaper...

[Shaun Austin]

during a discussion today with my wife she revealed she was pregnant. This will be number five and hopfully the last. I say hopfully because we're both creeping onto 43. the kids are all over the moon but to be honest me and Charlotte are scared to death. It is hard to deal with this one because both me and Charlotte had been niave and thought it was too late for us and that we would never have this chance again. What scares us even more is the fact that only Cameron was born on time, the other three were all born early. This is a very stressful time as i am sure you can imagine so your tips would be great.

 

[NancyM]

It's funny because in the 'Old' days people had big famlies all the time it was the norm. I came from a family of 7 children, my parents were kind and loving people which I've learned I was lucky to have.

Today my sisters and I have so many good memories of our childhood, and all the crazy 'big family' funny stories that goes with it, lol and are the best of friends. I don't know what I'd do without them.

I don't know, in a way what's one more? lol Your both full of experience now, and have older kids to help out, and personally I don't believe you have to have a lot of money to have many kids. We didn't and we all turned out fine, and 4 of us managed to graduate college.

You know NOW that you can get pregnant until your wife goes through menopause completely lol, which is a long time off for her, so if you make this little one your last, why not just agree to embrace the whole thing and celebrate. I think it's great.

 

[Shaun Austin]

Thanks for you're support NancyM, financially we should be okay however we're worried about the seriousness of this pregnancy we have had issues with Maddie (our daughter) during her pregnancy where eventually we had to have a cesarian section at 32 weeks. We're just worried this one will be the same

 

[NancyM]

Yeah that would worry me too. I suppose your wife is using the same OB I'm sure the dr is keeping a close eye on your wife because of this.

I have heard stories where woman had hard times with pregnancy than she finally does get pregnant and it's perfectly normal like nothing ever went wrong before, so try not to worry too much.

BTW.. I couldn't get pregnant for nothing, I miscarried many times and than BINGO just like that, it took 9 yrs but my son finally came along, and it was a great experience not even morning sickness. I never felt better in my life, lol funny right. he was a big boy 9 lbs 12 oz so I had a C-section...happily I might add. lol

 

[akmom]

I have always wanted a second "set" around the end of our childbearing years, to bridge the gap between parenthood and grandparenthood, and keep a full house. You'll never have an empty nest!

I came from a nuclear family totally 3 kids and we weren't that close, but that has changed in adulthood. People with big families always have someone to go to. My husband came from a family with two "sets" (defined as 9+ years age difference, I hear) and he was in the older set. It was a great way to learn about responsibility and made him a great dad from the start. He was 16 and 17 when the newbies were born, so I think it can be great experience for your older kids.

 

[cybele]

Every pregnancy is different, but if you can, I would be trying to stick with the same OB, as he/she knows your wife's history.

so I think it can be great experience for your older kids.

This. I love seeing the way Dita and Azriel interact with Sasha.

 

[Shaun Austin]

Yeah I can see that it might help them. I hope that Cameron and Maddie will act in the same way as Sam and Callum did when they were born. May I also add, is it too early to start thinking about names? Because it seems that the name debate has already going in our household. We want something that goes with Samuel/Sam, Callum, Cameron and Maddison/Maddie. For this one Charlotte wants to go down the traditional road like she wants Oliver for a boy, and Hannah for a girl. Whereas I am looking at more unusual names such as Maybelle for a girl, and Tyger or Tyler for a guy. Anyway let us know what you think. The kids on the other hand want something 'cool' and 'awesome'. Maddie asked if we could call it Cindarella for a girl lol and Cameron wants us to call it Robin-Hood for a guy.

 

[akmom]

It's not too early to start thinking about names. We didn't select my son's name until he was born, and that was kind of stressful. I had a bunch picked out before I even had kids, but unfortunately I had to toss that list because my husband and I share very little overlap in name preference.

BabyCenter has a "Baby Name Explorer" feature that generates names based on other names you like. It also ranks popularity, which I think is useful. Traditional names sound nice, but when you have a classroom full of 4 Jacobs and 6 Emilys, it's kind of a pain.

 

[akmom]

Some suggestions for Maybelle were Isadora, Siyah, Cecilia and Brinley. For Tyger, there was Tryston, Ezra, Quinn and Talen. There's more suggestions attached to those names, and you can enter more names. I've never actually found a name I'd want to use that way, but it's kind of fun.

 

[cybele]

I had to grin at the idea of Maybelle being an unusual name, rather than a traditional one, Mabel is my grandmother's name

 

[Shaun Austin]

Thanks I will certainly give it a go I can see what you mean about traditional names they can be quite annoying for example I work in a Sixth Form College (working with 16-18/19 year olds) teaching Water Sport and Counselling and in one class I have three kids called Thomas

 

[cybele]

Unusual names can double up too. There are two Sunny's in Sunny's class (despite Sunny not being her full name, she goes pretty exclusively by it), and a Summer in the other grade 6 class. The three of them get muddled up all the time.

 

[cybele]

On the topic of not agreeing, what my husband and I did for all 5 of our kids was we had a little notebook, divided into 3 sections:

Cybele's names
Ash's names
Yes names

I could write all the names that I liked down in my section, and Ash did the same in his section, then I went through his section, and him through mine and we crossed off all the names, if we didn't like it, it was crossed off and never spoken of again, if we liked it, it went into the "yes" section.

Prevented much bickering.

 

[Shaun Austin]

Thats a good idea. May use it our self.

 

[mom2many]

Or if your like me and can't think of a name...let the kids pick.

 

[akmom]

I could write all the names that I liked down in my section, and Ash did the same in his section, then I went through his section, and him through mine and we crossed off all the names, if we didn't like it, it was crossed off and never spoken of again, if we liked it, it went into the "yes" section.

That's exactly what we did for our son! Neither of us got our favorite name, but we found something that made us both content. Now I can't imagine him having any other name.

That's sweet that you had the siblings help name some. My daughter insisted on Cinderella or Bob, so that wasn't happening. (Like Bob the Tomato from Veggie Tales.) I once had a teacher who had all his students throw suggestions in a hat for he and his wife to browse, and whichever kid came up with the winning name got some kind of prize. They actually did use a student's suggestion.

 

[cybele]

When I was pregnant with Sunny, Azriel kept saying that we should call her "poo brain".

My children are clearly very lovely.

 

[Shaun Austin]

yeah they're great ideas and poor baby having a sibling rivalry before its even born!!! It seems that our family is currently split 50/50 me and the younger two want unusual names while Charlotte and the teenagers all want tradittional names we may have to either double barrel or pray for twins

 

[Shaun Austin]

We have now narrowed the name down to just a few options for each gender. For girls we have either Poppy or Karen, and for boys we have Jay, Tyger, Harry, Oliver and William. Let us know what you think.

 

[akmom]

Well since you're polling, I vote Karen and Jay.