"What, you want me to name someone? You want like a name? Oh, the pressure of a name... I got it."

Name that movie!

On October 9, 2009, one of our Maternal-Fetal doctors said to us, "I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but your baby DOES have spina bifida. I'll leave you two alone for a while," and he left the room. In the next few, worst moments of our lives, Russell and I prayed a tearful prayer that God would heal our child and make her "complete and whole."

As you've figured out by now, our daughter's name is Emma, but there's a little more to it than that. I am the third Mary in my family, and my mother-in-law, Mary Jane, is the second Mary in her family. (Yeah, I know, we're both named Mary Young.) We wanted to keep Mary in our daughter's name, but we thought it would be overkill to call her Mary Fill-in-the-Blank. So we decided on Emary (pronounced like Emory, the college). When we were figuring out what to actually call her, I looked up the name Emma online. In its English origin, it means "complete" and "whole." Given her diagnosis, that's pretty significant; on top of that, God was simply repeating back to us the words we prayed to Him in October.

We know that no matter what happens with Emma physically, she will always be complete and whole in God's eyes, as she is one of His beloved children. What a blessing it was to have Him speak to us so intimately about our baby.

Today was another doctor's visit, and I made sure to drink a sugary Sprite before we went. The visit was rather uneventful, but Emma did kick, roll, and punch enough to satisfy the doctors. We scheduled our pre-op for Monday, so now we just have a little bloodwork and one more ultrasound to go! The GREAT news is that my sister, Anissa, is driving up from New Orleans on Sunday and gets to come to the ultrasound with me :) Russell, my mom, his mom, and I are the only ones allowed back in the NICU once Emma is here, so for some of our family members, the ultrasound is as close as they can get for a little while.

One more day of work left! It's very cool to be able to say, one more day of work, one more ultrasound, one more haircut, one more day of maternity dress pants...