Some Updates

I went in for an ultrasound yesterday with the high risk doctor. It was for a growth scan. We had to do this due to me having Kensington and the new baby so close together. The high risk doctor explained to me that when you have two pregnancies back to back, before your body fully recovers, your baby is at risk for a lower birth weight. So, we had one scan yesterday and will have another one in a month to check her size again. I’m so extremely happy to report that the baby is growing absolutely perfectly. She’s 2 lbs 6 oz right now and is measuring right on track. They actually, surprisingly enough, are now worried she may end up too big. Which is actually comical to me because I’ve only gained 9 lbs and I’m 29 weeks pregnant. They say I’m hiding it very well and its typical in fourth pregnancies for mothers to hide it very well. Logan was my biggest baby at 8 lbs 3 oz and back then they swore to me he would be no bigger than 7 lbs. They said since I have such a petite frame (I think they are just being nice, I’m not as petite as I once was) they don’t want her too big. So, we’ll see! I’m just very happy that all is good and she is perfectly healthy! She’s also cute as a button! She reminds me so much of Kensington when I saw her during ultrasounds. Mike wasn’t able to come with me because he was at work but he agreed – she already looks like a Sass kiddo!

She’s facing you straight on here

I’m an oversharer by nature, thanks Mom. No really, it has to be hereditary. Actually, now that I think of it my dad is an oversharer as well. I was doomed from the start! I just can’t keep big news to myself. I also don’t have to remind you that I struggle just a tad with making decisions. Due to my oversharing, you know this all too well. What can I say? Thats just Kristen.

But you know whats funny? When you throw out all your silly “rules” that you foolishly created yourself, naming a baby becomes pretty easy. I make things so much more complicated than they have to be. Are you keeping track, I’m an oversharer, an over analyzer, and I make things more complicated than they have to be….lets add self destructive to that list. Okay, back to the point. Recently, I kinda just sat back and said to myself: if I just picked a name I loved, didn’t worry about what everyone else thought, didn’t worry about it going perfectly with my other kids names, didn’t worry about using a family name, etc etc….say I treated it as if this was my first baby, what would I come up with? I thought about it over and over and every time I came to the same conclusion “Eliot McKenna”. You know we’ve always loved Eliot and McKenna is a name we’ve always loved as well. I just love how they sound together. Also, because we are extremely corny Mike and I love that McKenna holds both mine and Mikes first initials and they are both capital letters in the name McKenna. And just like that is became so clear to me, that cute little baby girl in the ultrasound pictures, her name is Eliot McKenna.

The official Sass lineup … Kamryn Alexis, Logan Michael, Kensington Bree and Eliot McKenna. Has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?

When I think back to my pregnancy with Kensington, the weeks following her birth, finding out unexpectedly I was pregnant so soon and then finding out she was a girl it all makes sense. God is constantly reminding me He has a hand in all of this….and if not God someone is looking over me swaying my decision one way or the other. I am one of those people constantly praying and asking God to show me signs on what’s the right thing to do. Mike and I always said we would have a daughter named Eliot. My heart knew we would have an Eliot but shortly after we named our third baby that everything in me was telling me she wasn’t “Elliot”. This was so extremely weird and almost sad to me because I just KNEW she was our last baby. When she was about 2 months old and legally Kensington, a name that is TOTALLY her, I kept getting this overwhelming feeling that we were not done having babies. That we would have another one. Here I was, 2 months postpartum and my mind is on the potential of another baby. Not that I wanted one anytime soon it was just that feeling of “this isn’t my last baby”. So, Mike and I talked about it, realized we were nowhere near ready and decided to revisit that thought in 2 years. 5 months later I found myself staring at a positive pregnancy test and extremely shocked. We joked that if this baby ended up being a girl God was telling us she was Eliot. But, lets be serious…we knew we were having a boy. HA! When we found out it was a girl we both just looked at each other with the biggest smiles and laughed and laughed. We started to talk names – Everly, Finley, Berkley, Atley…nothing seemed just right. I searched high and low for the perfect family name for a middle name, nothing stuck. Something kept bringing me back to Eliot but I felt silly that my mind kept going there. But, when I stopped overthinking it I realized Eliot is her name and chances are Eliot was always meant to be her name. This was meant to be, I truly believe it was. As silly as that may sound…we were truly always meant to have our Eliot. Kensington was meant to be Kensington and Eliot was meant to be Eliot.

((and no, we won’t be calling her Elli))

And if nothing else….what a naming story for our little girls, huh? 

We can’t wait to meet her! Just 10 weeks and 4 days left … but whos counting?!?