The biggest question we have encountered on this baby journey?  By far it has been:  <strong>Have you picked out a name?</strong> Yes, we have chosen a name; no, we will not tell you.  [I told you I'm not nice all the time.]  We've been telling people that it's our secret.  Are there people out there that know the name?  Yes.  Like that thank you note I sent out with "Love, Stephen, Jennifer, &amp; baby"...only I didn't put <em>baby</em> and instead put her actual name.  Also that guy in the Pass/ID office in Germany who kind of creeped me out.  He had just finished telling us how he &amp; his old lady couldn't think of any other names aside from their own at the time of their son's birth, so they mixed the two together on the spot when the nurse could wait no longer.  Really, dude?  You could only think of two names in the world and you didn't think during the months prior that the hospital might need something to call your new baby??  Yikes.  Admittedly, he was a weird guy.  I think I told him partly b/c I didn't want him thinking we were in the same boat (there will be no Jennphen or Stephiffer in this house); also partly b/c I was pretty sure he would never tell anyone.

Which is why we are keeping mum.  If we tell one parent or friend, someone is bound to let the secret out or feel slighted that we did not share the news with them too.  I didn't even want to find out the sex of the babe, but in the end we wanted everyone to be able to celebrate in the pink or blue festivities with us.  And this has <span style="text-decoration:underline;">not</span> been easy.  There have been some especially clever individuals who have attempted to finagle hints about the first initial, the origin of the name, or the theme.  We want to tell you, we really do.  We've even considered some sort of game to put it out there -- Hangman, maybe?

The information that we have released is that the name is uncommon.  Yes, we are those parents.  The ones who use ambiguous names, oddly spelled names, and ones that make you go "rrh??"  (Can you tell that I kind of delight in this?)  I *have* found it interesting when people arrive at the point where they start guessing.  Olive, Cypress, &amp; Nymphadora have been my favourites so far (no, no, &amp; no -- sorry).  It's starting to feel like that fairy tale "<a title="Rumpelstiltskin" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rumpelstiltskin" target="_blank">Rumpelstiltskin</a>", which makes me giggle.

We cannot even tell you the names we didn't choose, b/c we plan to use those for future kiddos.  (See how mean we are?)  I *can* say that we each picked one name, so it really was a team effort.  In less than two months, you will all know.  That's not too long, is it?  Anyone else out there hold out to the bitter(sweet) end??