Why Poppy?

T and I have long wanted to start a family, but the timing was never right. We were newly eloped married, joining Peace Corps, transitioning to New York, in grad school, etc. But just because we weren't actively trying all those years, doesn't mean we weren't talking about it.

It must have been at least 7 years ago when T first told me he wanted to name our firstborn Thelonious... and I promptly vetoed it. It was 6 years ago that I had a job with pregnant and parenting teenagers (and their rambunctious infants and toddlers) and left that position thinking perhaps I wasn't ready for children in my early twenties. Or ever. And it's been all along the way that my in-laws have been popping out babies one right after the other (11 nieces and nephews, and counting!), not to mention our friends and other peers that have started in as well.

So late last year, when we realized that I was done with grad school and T was nearly there as well... well, we had run out of excuses. We both had decent full time jobs (though the scary economy was -- and is -- a sizable concern). We were both steadily pushing toward 30 (and had always planned/hoped to start a family by then). And both our relationship and our desire to have children remained strong. So we figured, "What the hell?"

And now here we are today :)

When we first found out I was pregnant back in mid-February, we spent the first couple of days in shock (it's amazing how terrified you can be even after doing something like this on purpose) while simultaneously trying to figure out what, if anything, to call this new creature we'd started growing. "Baby" seemed a little presumptuous as we hadn't even reached the fetal stage yet and had all the typical first trimester/miscarriage jitters. "Peanut" was a little too generic. "Embryo" or "fetus" a little too... scientific. So we did what any sensible parents-to-be would do -- we went with the weekly food size comparison offered by BabyCenter -- and "Poppy" was born.

Poppy is gender neutral (we're not interested in finding out the sex before birth), cute, and not too close to a "real" name to weird us out. It keeps us from having to use the oh-so-impersonal "it," while at the same time shying away from the plain "Baby," and it makes us feel as though this little person we're growing is something unique already, even if she's not quite all there just yet. And, thinking ahead, it gives me a good pseudonym for the long-term life of this blog, if I so choose to keep the little one anonymous on the interweb.

You may have noticed the subtle "she" I dropped in the last paragraph. Since Poppy showed up, we've discovered a hole in the English language -- gender neutral pronouns. Still not so keen on referring to Poppy as "it," we debated what to do and ended up with T claiming "he" in the hopes that Poppy is a boy, and me claiming "she" simply to be passive aggressive and go head to head with T. Worst case scenario? We confuse the poor kid in utero and end up with a gender bending toddler.

But, hey, it could be worse. She could end up a Republican ;)