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Some of you may have heard, and others perhaps not, but in any case… it’s true, I am now an expectant father! Jess and I are both very excited, as are our families. I realize many of you are saying to yourselves, “well it’s about time!” but now is just really the perfect time. I can’t wait!

It’s been an interesting experience so far and at the encouragement of some others, I’m going to do my best to share some thoughts here from time to time… and maybe even more regularly than that if you’re lucky.

Finding out was really cool… Jess seemed to have an inkling that “something was up”, but I wasn’t convinced. I thought we would wait to see if the monthly friend paid it’s regular visit, and if it was “suspiciously late”, then we might go to the store and get one of those tests. I was really resigned to not getting my hopes up right away on what was basically “the first try” knowing it doesn’t always happen the first planned attempt. Jess then made me aware of hearing about products that could show accurate results as much as 5 days prior to the next expected “monthly visit” and that was pretty much all it took to convince me to head down to the store to get the necessary testing materials.

I remembered the the wisdom of a work friend, who said be sure to try two different tests… two different brands… make sure they both show positive. Probably the best way to be safe. Needless to say, both turned up positive. That was on October 21st, 2004.

After the initial shock and amazement wore off, I was really excited to get some reading material on what I needed to know about pregnancy (for those who don’t know, I was planning on a medical career at one point so the specifics fascinate me), and then of course what to expect after baby arrives… how to do the basic tasks (diapers, etc.)

I have to say I found a hilarious book called The Baby Owner’s Manual. It’s written like some kind of technical manual (which mainly makes up most of my regular “recreational” reading material) so the language definitely felt natural to me. It’s great how it covers such subjects as: “Installing Diapers” and “Programming Sleep Mode”. Humorous for the technically minded, yet informational as well! I can say I highly recommend it….

Jess and I were tortured by the fact that we had such exciting news, and yet couldn’t share it with anyone. Well at least that’s what you’re not supposed to do, right? There seems to be this “commonly accepted norm” that news of the pregnancy shall not be made known to the general populace until at least 12 weeks into said pregnancy.

Whatever.

We did tell our parents at least fairly soon and decided we would just wait until the first doctor’s appointment to see how things were going. I did some hunting online about other folks thoughts on this and I think what struck me the most was someone that said something to the effect of how I would be sharing some of the best news of my life with people I care about and (presumably) care for me. In the event something should go wrong and the baby be lost, I would want those people to understand what I was going through and comfort me… not be left wondering what the heck’s the matter with me. And then of course was the simple fact that we just couldn’t keep it a secret anymore. So we started spreading the news last week.
Now that’s not to say we don’t have this fear of something going wrong… a medical problem with the baby, with Jess, a “condition”, or even possibly losing the baby. I find myself worrying about it multiple times daily. But a simple prayer for comfort/peace and the knowledge that things are looking very “normal” and we’re not necessarily pre-disposed to such problems is usually all it takes to quell the thought in my head.

The first doctor’s appointment went very well as far as I could tell. The ultrasound was done first and just an amazing thing to see. I so can’t wait for the next one. The rest was just meeting with the doctor and talking about family histories and what we can be doing right now to ensure the best possible health for the baby. I liked the doctor we had, though I don’t know if we’ll keep her since she’s not Jess’ regular doctor. But things seemed to go well and more or less ended with a “sit back and wait” while continuing the generally good stuff we’re doing and preparing by reading, etc. Next appointment is Dec 16th….

Jess has been suffering from morning (and noon, and night) sickness. Ever since November 1st really… that’s where she pins the date it started. So she’s been having a hard time with the constant feeling of nausea, fatigue, etc. I’ve made sure she has all the “remedies” available to her: crackers, various products containing ginger, Sea-Bands, etc. Nothing seems to really help improve it any, but she’s bearing with it. She had to suffer through her birthday not feeling so well which sucks, but I guess some days are going to be bad no matter when you go through this process, right? We’re pretty much taking it easy these days. After work we’ll come home and Jess will just want to park on the couch… we watch some items from the TiVo (the greatest invention ever) and she usually konks out around 8:30P or so at which time I generally come upstairs and fart around on the computer writing silly blog entries and such. A nice glass of red wine or port has been my friend these evenings… it’s not only good for us males, but helps me to sleep very soundly through her tossing and turning. It’s the crackling of the cracker wrappers / cereal bags at 3:30/4 in the morning…. now that’s what gets me! Really though, I find I don’t mind it. I’ve been more tired the last couple days, probably due to reduced sleep, but at this point, I’m still not minding it. As of this writing, she should have approximately 4 weeks of this left before she just wakes up one day and magically feels perfectly fine. Can’t wait for that!
I do have to admit it’s been somewhat nice. She doesn’t get around the rest of the house all that much, so I haven’t had to hear a whole lot of complaints about how dirty the house is, etc. (I have a much higer tolerance for dirt than she does.) It’s finally gotten to the point where some effort needs to be put into cleaning though so I’ll be doing that this weekend I suppose.

It’s been really cool talking with various friends who already have young kids and have recently been in our shoes and even one co-worker who is also pregnant and about 7 weeks ahead of Jess. Everyone has been a great source of information and I’m not sick of it yet… I’m happy to soak up everything I can absorb on this topic!