WTF!!!

10/28/2010

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I must've said or thought, "WTF!", a thousand times in the first few weeks after the OBGYN confirmed that my wife was pregnant and still do to this day and I have a very strong feeling that I will continue to do so in the months to come. I was flooded with overwhelming contradicting emotions-happiness, joy, doubt and fear. Is this really happening? Am I really going to be a dad? The concept of two people in love, or not in love for that matter, creating a life is mind-blowing and unimaginable. My words here don't do my feelings justice...

 
One of the first things that I consciously remember changing about my daily actions was adjusting my driving practices. The day before my realization I was  very aggressive on the road. 70mph in a 40mph zone was business as usual for me; weaving in and out of traffic to find the path of least resistance was a game! Not anymore... I might as well dye my hair grey, pull my pants up to the bottom of my rib cage and call myself "pops". My current place on the road is now in the right lane observing  the speed limit and following the herd, so to speak. My wife can't stand it and I can't help it. I have a family now and I need to be around, in top working condition, for them. Wow! A family. My family. WTF!!!
 
Throughout my blog I may mention a variety of different products that I, my wife or my son use or do not use. I just want to make it clear that I have no loyalty whatsoever to any of them and am not being compensated, by any means, from any company.
 
Now hear this...

If any company is willing to shower me and my family with diamonds, gold and cold hard cash in return for a favorable review of their product; I may sell out and strong-arm my biases, favorably, in your direction. Hey, I got another mouth to feed!!!
 
I don't know about you but I have never stepped foot in an OBGYN's office. For the most part it looks like your typical run of the mill doctors office. You got your receptionist's desk, bathroom, waiting area and examining rooms. What's different and what intrigued me was the table in the exam room. Same as what I was used to but the kick was the stirrups at the end. Yup, stirrups! Picture your wife or girlfriend laying on her back on the table with each one of her legs up at an angle and both of her feet resting on what looks like a foot rest attached to the end of the table. Shocking, weird, interesting and at the same time, a bit of a turn on! Hey, in a different setting it could be fun!! Anyway, in walks the nurse/medical assistant to take my wife's blood pressure, weight, pee test and most importantly to take her blood. A few minutes later the doctor walks in and confirms that we're pregnant!! He said that according to his pregnancy calculator (Yes, he actually had a calculator) we conceived on Valentines Day! Awwww... Now ain't that romantic!!!!! I smiled knowingly at my wife and the doctor congratulated us and shook my hand. I'm gonna be a Daddy! WTF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Crazy! 

We made our second appointment for one month later and drove home. Ya' know what the first thing I did when we walked into the house? I went right for the drawer and yanked it open. I rifled roughly through the things in it and found the sperm cup. I grabbed it by it's neck, ripped it violently from where it lay, held it up above my head, dashed across the room and slam dunked that bitch into the garbage pail! Me? Not fertile! Bullshit!!!!! My joint works and works damn well! After a few hours of chest pounding I settled down, held my wife close, told her thank you and that I love her and drifted off to sleep... 
 
And so it happened. My wife was late. She has been late before but I had a feeling that this time was different! Of course it was, we were to be married in three weeks so why wouldn't we be pregnant now? I totally knew we were pregnant before we even drove to the pharmacy to get a pregnancy urine test and I was excited and a bit anxious! We picked up two pregnancy tests and booked it home. My wife did her business and then we waited... And waited... And waited some more... In reality it only took a minute before we saw the results (Positive +) but that minute felt like forever! By the way, the test says that you have to wait four minutes before you check the results even though the results are there in one minute. Four minutes!!!!??? Really?! Yea, like I'm gonna really wait four minutes. One minute was long enough! We both looked at the test strip in shock! We're pregnant!!!!!!! WTF?!? Why were we shocked though? I mean we were "Not, not trying" for months now so what did we expect! Still it was a bit shocking to see that plus sign. We hugged & kissed each other intensely and couldn't wipe the smiles off our faces the entire night. My wife took the 2nd pregnancy test about an hour after the first test results just to make sure and once again we waited... And waited... And waited some more... Yup, same result .... My wife called her OBGYN's (Baby Doctor) office the very next morning to schedule our first, of many, appointment.
 
My wife bought me a book entitled, "The Expectant Father" by Armin A. Brott & Jennifer Ash a few months ago and since we are now 28 weeks pregnant as of yesterday, I opened it back up and read the chapter regarding "7 Months". I was a bit disappointed with the chapter which is shocking to me because the book is usually very informative. This chapter was mainly about picking names for the baby and planning a baby shower. Both of which my wife and I have already completed. Disregarding my above comment, I would definitely recommend any dads-to-be to read this book as I have enjoyed it thus far. Let's hope Mr. Brott & Ms. Ash redeem themselves in next months chapter.
 
I have decided, after a talk with my wife, to try and maintain some sort of privacy while writing this blog. I realize that in order to accomplish my vision for this project that I've undertaken I will need to be open and honest about various different topics, some of which may be uncomfortable, embarrassing or intimate. The very last thing that I want to do is to put my wife or our unborn child in the spotlight when these topics arise so I have put a few privacy guidelines in place which I will follow religiously.

I have taken my wifes name out of all of my previous posts and from now on she will be referred to quite simply and lovingly as "wife". I have only referenced my name once so far, which has now been changed to the crafty moniker, "A". Once our baby boy is born he will be referred to as "baby" or "son". I will not get into specific geographical locations or be posting any pictures or videos of myself, wife or child throughout my blog. I hope that these few guidelines won't impede on my readership here (Do I even have any readers?) as I do appreciate your time, feedback and support. Thanks for understanding...
 
A child that is...

Deciding whether or not to start a family is an easy decision. You either do or don't. The hard part is actually making it happen when you decide that you do want to have a child. My wife and I put into the practice of, "Not, not trying". What that means is we stopped using contraceptive methods and continued our intimate encounters as normal. If we conceived then great! If not, then no big deal. We still have plenty of time. One month went by, not pregnant. Two, three, four months went by, still not pregnant. Now even though we weren't trying to get pregnant (Yea, right! Who were we kidding!) we started to get worried that we wouldn't be able to. At the time, a lot of my wifes friends either just had babies or were pregnant and started giving her suggestions (Elevating her legs after intercourse. Having intercourse every other day so that I may build up sperm. Having intercourse 14 days from last period.) on ways to conceive. No offense to my wifes friends, I do love them dearly, but I really found those techniques quite funny. My wife and I had decided to have beautiful intimate relations everyday, sometimes twice a day to make sure we covered our bases; well I really decided on that. And it was more of a primal animal instinct then a decision. My wifes hot! I can't keep my hands off her!

With no fault of our own the fifth month went by and still we haven't conceived. Wait, no fault of our own? Was it our fault? Can we even have kids? Are we fertile? AM I FERTILE?!? Oh man! Talk about stressing myself out! So we went to Walgreens, the local pharmacy/mega convenience store, to get an ovulation prediction kit (Maybe my wifes friends suggestions weren't as funny as I originally thought!) and a home fertility test. So much for "Not, not trying", huh! That went out the window real quick. At this point we were totally trying to have a baby and were still worried that we would not be able to. We even started talking about Invitro and adoption. We returned home and on the third day after my wifes menstruation was over took the fertility test. According to the test results her FSH (Follicle-Stimulating Hormone) levels were ideal and she was able to become pregnant. Ok, check. She's fertile. What about me?!? My wife just happened to have a regularly scheduled gynecologist visit a week later. She came home from her appointment with a surprise for me. A prescription for a male fertility test which came with my very own, brand new, shiny: "sperm deposit cup"! Whhhhaaaattttt!!!! You want me to do what? Where? In there? Oh boy...
 
Although my blog is not about my wife and I entirely, I do want to take a moment and share our story. After all, if certain events didn't take place this blog wouldn't exist because we wouldn't be expecting parents. It all started back in High School...

No, we were not HS sweethearts. No, we didn't run in the same cliques. We didn't even have any classes together. As a matter of fact she really wouldn't give me the time of day! Well, she may have but I always wore a watch so I already knew what time it was and never asked. Yes, she was beautiful (Still Is. Even more so today!). Yes, she was the captain of the cheer-leading squad (NICE!). She was also the star of the HS musical (42nd Street) that year, in which I was also a cast member, and that's where yours truly fell in "like".
Yes, "like". I didn't know what "love" was then. But I do now! Love to me is my wife, plain and simple. Anyway, back to my story. So I liked her. I liked her a lot. I had such a crush on her that one night I wrote her a note professing my love for her and gave it to her the next day. Yes, a note. What did you expect? It was high school and I was an unworldly teenager. This note will be a major player later on, so keep it in mind. I wish I could tell you that she was so touched by my love note and fell madly in love with me right then and there but that would be an untruth. The rest of the year was uneventful. She graduated and went off to college and I did the same, a year later, without any further contact.

Fifteen years later a little social networking website called, Facebook, was created. I signed up and created an account to see what all the hype was about. Lo and behold, I came across my teenage crushes profile, saw she was listed as single  (Ha! Not for long!), and "friended" her.  She sent me a message and we started chatting and texting via cell phone all week. She had mentioned that she just recently moved to a different apartment and came across the love note that I wrote her while she was packing! WOW! I finally asked her if she wanted to get together and go for a drive out to the winery's on the North Fork at the east end of Long Island. She agreed, I asked her to bring the love note with her so she could read it to me, and I was psyched!!!!! Our first date was about ten hours long!!!! We had a great time and I was smitten once again! This time, she was too!!!! We started dating exclusively about two weeks after that and fell in love. I moved into her place three months later and asked her to be my wife a month after that. We were married nine months from then on March 27 of this year sharing our little secret that we were six weeks pregnant with our first child!!! Talk about not wasting any time, huh!? Hey, when you meet the right person for you, you just know.

Just recently we were reminiscing about our story and I asked her why she was so quick to agree to a date with me, I mean besides my ravishing good looks and charming personality, and she told me that the love note I wrote her that she had come across a few months before our reconnection on Facebook made her feel comfortable with taking a shot. ;) I'm soooooooooo happy I wrote that note back when I was sixteen years old...
 
Nope... Not the babies name, that will come later; but the name of my blog.

"He's Pregnant, Too!" was my attempt to put into words how I feel about our pregnancy and create a blog title. Yes, OUR pregnancy. My wife and I are both pregnant, so to speak. I mean of course she's doing all the work (God bless her! She's a saint and doing a wonderful job, so far!) but I have been doing everything possible to be involved every step of the way. Some may misconstrue my blogs title as defensive, like my wife's getting all the attention from friends and family and I feel ignored, but that's not the case and wasn't my intention when I chose the name my blog. I do hope this clears things up a bit.
 
Hmmm...


I'm staring at a blank text box, trying to think of something witty or creative to say to "break the ice" and kick off my blog. I'm realizing now that it's a bit more difficult then I thought it would be, so instead of trying too hard to be entertaining, I've decided to just speak from my heart and use this forum as a "mind dump", if you will.

You can call me "A", just a regular guy in my early thirties. I have a successful career in middle management and am pleased with my career path. I'm really still a kid at heart. Silly & playful but responsible and determined. I'm not a writer by any means, so please bare with me, but am an avid reader and thinker. I also have no formal education in medicine, however, I may reference the topic from time to time in relation to what our OBGYN (That's a baby doctor) has told us, but don't take my word for it, ask your own doctor! I met, fell in love with, married and and am expecting our first child with the love of my life, best friend and partner in crime; my beautiful wife. I'll get deeper into our story a bit later. It's a good one! No... Great, Amazing and Epic!
Anyway, my mind was and still is and I have a strong feeling will always be full of various thoughts and feelings about the entire pregnancy experience. I didn't start jotting down my notes about these thoughts/feelings until we were about 6 months into our pregnancy (Actually, it's 24 weeks not 6 months because that's the way pregnancy time is measured. In weeks not months. Hey! I didn't make it up, it is what it is!) and I needed to document them so I was sort of drawn to write this blog and share my thoughts and feelings about my new life as an expectant father. Wow! FATHER!!! I'm gonna be a Dad! My wife and I created a precious human life and I'm his Dad! His male role model. Yes, we're expecting a boy and I will teach him how to become a respectful young man, a gentleman. God help me!