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Man! Things have been busy. Let's play catch up.
Thanksgiving... I got a little fatter. Okay. Considerably fatter.
LSU game... we lose. Boo. I made crawfish jambalaya, and it was awesome. Yay.
The Monday after Thanksgiving weekend, Stephanie went to see the doctor for the first time. I didn't go, because she wasn't expecting them to do much more than a pelvic exam and I want to be able to go to later visits without using too much sick time.
So I didn't go. And of course, she had an ultrasound. That's her uterus, up there. And inside it is a little person. See the dark blob that looks like a Zol from Legend of Zelda? Yeah, that's not it. See the tiny white blob inside the dark blob? There it is! That tiny white blob is our baby! I think. Pretty sure, at least.
Stephanie also informed me that she was able to hear the heartbeat. Apparently this is a big deal and a lot of times you can't hear the heartbeat this early. But she could!
"Babe, I could hear the heartbeat!"
"Really?????"
"Yeah! 147 beats a minute."
"OH MY GOD!!!!
"... ... ... "
"What was wrong??? Was everything okay???"
"Yeah, 147 is where it is supposed to be at. That's normal."
"Hey, why don't you volunteer that kind of info a little sooner next time."
Soooo... the baby is healthy, and the mommy is healthy and starting to do a little better with the morning sickness. Apparently this is a misnomer, too. She was sick all the time...really less so during the morning. At least around me. Hopefully the current trend continues.
The pregnancy question is past the point of ridiculous. My work Christmas party was this past weekend, and Stephanie was asked if she was pregnant by a woman that I work with who has seen her literally four times in two years. Simply because she wasn't drinking. What kind of vibe are we giving off that we have spawned? I think her sister is more and more suspicious each day. There is no way we make it to Christmas, which is a shame.
One thought we've had is to take a picture of the sonogram and put it in a picture ornament on our Christmas tree and see if anyone notices... I really, really like this idea, although I seriously doubt that anybody WOULD notice. Who really inspects somebody else's Christmas tree up close?
I want to start reading the What to Expect book. Like, I have kind of been beating myself up about not starting it and instead reading a book about beer written by George Wendt. I mean, Seth Rogan freaking read the What to Expect book... I should really get on it. I know nothing about what is going on inside Stephanie's uterus, even though it's one-half mine. I'm talking about the baby. Not her uterus. That's all hers. I want none of it. But the baby is half me, and I need to learn more about it.
I got $100 in gift cards from Barnes and Noble for my birthday. I read voraciously, and I get gift cards to bookstores on just about every gift-giving occasion. I never in a million years imagined I'd be using the gift cards I received on my 28th birthday on books about becoming a parent.
Never in a trillion would I imagine being so excited about it.
What a busy weekend.
Yesterday was my birthday, and also the last home Razorback football game of the year. The game was early... 11:21a.m., so Steph and I got up around 7:30, went to breakfast with family and friends, and then headed to the game. Later, a large group went out to dinner to celebrate my birthday.
Two sizable challenges to keeping Stephanie's pregnancy a secret crammed into one day. Fortunately, the early game kept people from asking Steph why she wasn't drinking while we tailgated. Dinner seemed like a tougher challenge, but I'm not sure anyone noticed. If they did, I don't recall anyone asking. Next week is Thanksgiving. And then on Saturday we are hosting a watch party at our house for the Hogs' season finale against LSU. And on Sunday we are hosting a belated birthday party for me and Shayna, Stephanie's cousin. She doesn't drink much, but at some point somebody is going to notice that they haven't seen her with an alcoholic drink in weeks, and ask the question. Especially how the two of us having children seems to be the hot topic for anyone who talks to us these days.
Assuming we make it to Christmas, Stephanie found a great idea for a way to break the news to our families. Expressing the need for a family picture, Stephanie will ask me to take a picture of her family with our camera. After counting to three and taking the first one, I will ask to take one more. On the second picture, I will replace "three" with "Stephanie is pregnant!" and get a picture of their reaction. We will repeat this trick with my family and Stephanie taking the picture, and hopefully I can get them posted here.
I expect the picture to look like this. Stephanie's mom will have her hands over her mouth and working up some tears. Her dad will be smiling with shock. And her sister will be pointing at her, her mouth open in the process of yelling "I KNEW IT!!"
As for my family, I expect my sister to have the same response as Stephanie's sister. My brother will laugh, unsure of whether it's a joke or not. My mom will look totally surprised, and my dad will look confused.
That's the fearless prediction, at least. We'll see if I get any of them right.
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As far as the actual pregnancy, things are going well, I suppose. She feels sick to her stomach a lot. Like, she probably tells me that every single day. I'm sure most of this is due to the pregnancy, but she is admittedly a little wussy about being sick anyway. I can see how she might be psyching herself into not feeling well sometimes simply because she's pregnant. Regardless of the cause, she's done really well about not being insufferable about it. I show her some sympathy, and ask her if I can do anything, and that's usually that. She toughs through it, and I really respect that.
She has a doctor's appointment the Monday after Thanksgiving, and I am really looking forward to that. I think the gravity of things will probably hit me at that time. It still has a surreal quality to it, because nothing is happening to me, and she's still acting so...so... normal.
I'm ready to feel involved in this thing, too, and I think that's what the doctor's visit will accomplish. At least, I much prefer it than for her to start acting like a crazy pregnant woman.
Stephanie gives me a wake up call every morning.
She calls me at about 6:45 while she is moving her vehicle from the parking garage, where she parks when she arrives predawn, to the general employee parking lot. She doesn't necessarily wake me from a dead sleep, but if she doesn't call before I make it out of bed, she definitely calls while I'm on the toilet taking my first whiz of the day.
That's right. I sit down to pee. You should too.
Oh sure, it's all fun and games and jokes about having a vagina until that morning you wake up from a big night of drinking with a bladder voraciously demanding relief. You sit up like a shot in your bed, and groggily collect your senses. The bathroom is that way. You stumble into position, begin the process, and lock your knees to steady yourself.
Then you see your girlfriend hovering over you with a concerned look. How did she get in the bathroom so fast? Why are you lying on the floor? Weren't you just taking a piss?
You were. Until you passed the fuck out.
You see, sitting up quickly in bed lowers your blood pressure. So does urinating. So does locking your knees. All of those together in the right circumstance and out go the lights. It's called micturition syncope. It happened to me a couple of years ago, and scared me pretty good. I'm a big ole boy...260 lbs. And I fell backward through the bathroom threshold like someone doing a trust exercise, only there was nobody there to catch me.
So, anyway. I sit down to pee. Where was I?
Oh yeah. So Stephanie called me this morning and bitched about her job for 15 minutes. I don't mind her bitching about her job. I listen to it. But to wake up to it? I of course have no recourse. She's pregnant. Newly pregnant, at that. I jokingly chided her for it this afternoon.
Me: You know you woke me up this morning with a fifteen minute tirade about your job?
Her: I'm pregnant! I'm hormonal!
Me: Yeah, but just recently. What about the rest of the time?
So, she was a little bitchy today. She's also glowing.
Like, there really is a glow. It's an actual thing. She is even more beautiful now than she was last week. Or yesterday. Earlier this evening. Five minutes ago.
We haven't told anyone yet. We are debating when we should do this. She is almost four weeks. She hasn't even been to the doctor, although I think she's spent a considerable portion of her paycheck on pregnancy tests. What about Thanksgiving? Is that too soon? Is Christmas too late? Should we tell just family? Family and close friends? What about telling just our mothers?
So many questions. So few answers. We really are just a couple of kids trying to figure it out at this point. I can't wait until she's far enough along that we can tell people and receive support and advice. With that said, there is something very...magnetic...yes, magnetic, about keeping such a big secret from the world. It is definitely making our relationship stronger. I feel closer to Stephanie than ever. This is a very, very happy time in our life together.
Even the first fifteen minutes of the morning.
"What's your favorite meal, and how often do you eat it?"
The answer, of course, is Thanksgiving Dinner. I know this. Because I'm a good husband. Perhaps more appropriately, because this is something my very passionate wife is particular passionate about. She loves Thanksgiving Dinner, and she only gets to eat it twice a year. Thanksgiving and Christmas. After 25 years of her gushing about it, her family can just about recite along with her when she gets going about how much she loves Thanksgiving. After four years, I've almost got it down pat myself.
I am driving home after work, on the phone with Stephanie. Yesterday, we made a pact to talk less about our work and less about our every day lives and more about everything else. So as I make the 25-minute journey home, I pull out a book of questions that Steph bought months ago that never made it out of my Xterra. Hundreds of questions that spark conversation and debate and, for Stephanie and I, laughter and the sense of pride you get from knowing about your mate. We cover meals and movies and colors and the trip home goes much faster than it usually does.
Once home, I have only about ten minutes to eat a snack and change into my softball jersey. I have a game at 6:30, and it's already 5:45. I make my way in from the garage, find Stephanie and kiss her on the forehead, and jog upstairs to pee and change into my softball clothes. For some reason, I decide to use the bathroom off of our bedroom (I refuse to call it master). I normally use the one off the hall. It's closer, and it's MINE. But today, I choose to use Stephanie's bathroom, and as I enter, I immediately see two pregnancy tests next to the sink.
I stare at them.
It's a surreal moment. Those two tests, just sitting there. Like that pile of money you could be saving by switching to Geico. I'm not sure what song from the 1980s belongs in the background for THIS, but the situation certainly calls for something. I am frozen in the doorway.
I hear movement behind me, and Stephanie walks into the bathroom with a sheepish grin. I haven't checked the tests. There is no need to. Their presence signifies their conclusion.
My wife is pregnant.
I am going to be a father.
And this is my story.
Man! Things have been busy. Let's play catch up.
