Well maybe it's not a total surprise for all of you, but for some of you this is the first you will hear that Marc and I are expecting baby #2! Hooray!! We found out the Monday before Thanksgiving, and since then we have just been playing the waiting game. It's one of those exciting events that makes you want to tell everyone, and at the same time you don't want to say anything because something bad could potentially happen. It's a weird place to be. But we had our Nuchal Translucency Screening on January 6th, and the baby looks healthy and is right on target for the July 20th due date that my doctor gave me. The big surprise for us is that the tech-guy at the screening said that it is 70% likely that we're having a girl!! A GIRL! As soon as we found out Marc said something to the effect of "My wallet already feels lighter," or that "his wallet hurts already," or something like that. I had to promise him that I wouldn't buy a single thing until Dr. Nguyen confirmed that she is in fact a girl. Oh, and I should probably explain the picture at the top of this post. The picture is a bust in the Louvre of Livia Augusta (previously known as Livia Drusilla), better known as the First Empress of Rome, the wife of Emperor Augustus. Her story is fascinating (to me anyway, but I promise not to bore you with all of the details that a history nerd finds "fascinating"), and she was arguably the most powerful woman the Roman Empire had ever seen. I have always had an academic and personal interest in her. Okay, one fun fact: just like today, the most powerful and wealthy women of the ancient world were trend setters of fashion and beauty, and you can date certain statues and paintings by the hairstyle present in the artwork. Livia started that front-hair-bun trend you see on her bust, and so we can reasonably date things during the reign of Augustus and Livia because of her hairstyle. Fun and interesting, right? Anyway, ages ago when Marc and I were talking about babies, I told him that if we ever did have children, and if we ever had a girl, I would want to name her Livia. We had decided pretty early on that this baby would either be Livia or Augustus, and when I asked Marc if he was sure about the girl's name, when we found out it was most likely a girl, he said that I had been talking about this for so long that he had always just known that his daughter's name would be Livia. So the name has stuck for all of these years, which makes things easy on us. So look out world! Livia Pace Riesenberg is on her way!
