Reese Apgar Lyman was born on December 27, 2006 at 4:43 AM. She weighed in at 8 pounds, 8 ounces and was 20.25 inches long. At birth and at five minutes, her Apgar score was 9 (Reese is the great-great-niece of Dr. Virginia Apgar).

Meg went into labor at 10:30 PM on the night of the 26th, and labored at home until 1:30 AM. We arrived at the hospital, labored some more, and after about 45 minutes of pushing, baby Reese arrived with a lusty cry. Both mom and baby are healthy, and will be discharged from the hospital on the morning of the 29th.

So, a lot of people are giving us grief about not telling the name. One group of people who beg me to tell them the name are my students! The beg me, telling me they won’t tell anyone, as if that makes a difference. Some start guessing, which is totally ridiculous. Some ask for the first letter, which I considered, but eventually said no (not even our family know even the first letter). The most creative question was, “What were the other names you considered?” In my opinion, an excellent questions, because it gives you an idea of the type of name the parents would pick. But no luck, our lips are sealed (for the most part, we have slipped) and we won’t tell you.

75 days left… things are getting pretty real now. We’re down to the “every other week” stage of meeting with our midwife, we’re taking weekly birthing classes, and we’re reading books like crazy. Oh yeah, and I think you could probably sit and watch Meg’s belly grow by the minute. It’s amazing how much she’s popping these days!

Really, though, everything is going great. We’re super happy with our midwife situation, and we’re in a really small birthing class that seems like it’s going to be very enjoyable. There’s only two other couples in the class, so we’re able to move through material pretty quickly.

On a side note, it is becoming increasingly difficult not to say the baby’s name in the company of friends and family. Meg and I refer to her by name all the time: “_______, what are you doing in there?” “How was ________ today? Did she move around a lot?” I’ve nearly slipped a number of times with my family, and I did slip once with an old friend of Meg’s who came to visit. This secret-keeping stuff is hard!

Man, you’d think that only having to come up with girl names from this point on would make life easier. The opposite has proven true. As far as boy names were concerned, we had it narrowed down to three names before going in for the sonogram, and we felt pretty good about all three of them! But with these girl names….

We actually made another trip to B&N yesterday so we could sit down with a name book again, try for a fresh start. We came up with some good combinations, and I’m glad we went, but we still haven’t settled on a name for baby girl Lyman. It looks like I might have to eat my words and wait until the baby is born to decide on a name for her.

Meg had some homework to do today, so I went with her to Barnes & Noble and sat down with a monster baby name book. My task was to get through the boy names, and I wanted to try and pick at least one name from each letter of the alphabet. I had a few preconceived favorites going into the affair, so I wanted to try and broaden my thinking a bit. The results certainly range from common to unconventional.

I couldn’t always pick an acceptable name for each letter, but here’s 24 possibilities if that “Y” chromosome has made it through. Feel free to comment with favorites or suggestions of your own. But if I don’t like your suggestions, there’’s really nothing you can do about it. Ha!

Allen | Bailey | Cooper | Donovan | Ethan | Finnegan (Finn) | Graham | Grant | Heath | Isaac | James | Jonathan | Kieran | Landon | Lawrence | Neil | Noah | Oakley | Owen | Patrick | Reagan | Sean | Soren | Thatcher

Well, after another couple of hours spent with Meg at Barnes & Noble, we now have list of possible girl names. It turned out to be considerably easier to pick out girl names, though I’m not sure why. I only skipped 7 letters of the alphabet. Anyway, here are the early contenders.

Andrea | Angela | Anne | Ashley | Bethany | Bridget | Caitlin | Caley | Chloe | Christina | Claire | Clara | Cosette | Deborah | Elisabeth | Ellen | Emma | Gabriela | Gabrielle | Gretchen | Hannah | Heather | Helen | Isabel | Kaitlyn | Lauren | Leah | Mackenzie | Madeleine | Nichole | Paige | Phoebe | Rachel | Ruth | Samantha | Stefanie | Theresa | Victoria | Virginia | Whitney