Month: April 2005

We heard it! Even though it’s been described to me dozens of times and even though I snuck on some website and listened to one a few weeks ago, hearing our own baby’s heartbeat was pretty amazing. My eyes were watering without me even realizing it.

So, I’m not even afraid anymore. I had spent the first 2 months paranoid and doubtful, but I think all of that is behind me now. Now I just walk around with a little secret. I may not look like it, but I’m going to be a mom! It’s crazy to think that inside of me right now is something that can swallow, wiggle, and feel things. It’s even peeing! It can do all that and more, but it’s just the size of a lemon. (It has progressed from an apple seed, to grape, then a strawberry, a small lime, half a banana, and now a lemon. Sounds like a tasty fruit salad, huh?) So our little lemon is perfect. Beating at 160 beats per minute.

I am 14 weeks and 2 days pregnant. (But I tell people I’m in my 15th week because I’m impatient and it sounds farther along.)

So today was the big day–the heartbeat. I guess I had it marked down as a big red letter day without really realizing it–I didn’t know I was nervous, but when the doctor squirted the jelly onto Leah and started moving that magic wand around, I caught myself holding my breath.

“Sometimes it takes awhile to find it,” she said. “It’s still pretty deep in there.” And the wand kept moving…and moving…and moving. I started to freak out a little, to imagine her telling us that she was going to go get the ultrasound machine and that it was no big deal it happens all the time don’t worry, and then:

Whup bup. Whup bup. Whup bup.

The coolest sound in the world.

Everything’s wonderful.

So I dragged Leah to Babies “R” Us a few weekends ago. We have no experience with baby stuff at all, so I thought it would be fun just to look at the new world of expensive gadgetry that awaits us. I was certain that massive leaps had been made in baby technology since my brothers and sister were in diapers, and I was not wrong.

Most impressive to me is this thing called CRIB2QUEEN. For $800, you get a crib that turns into a twin…and then a full…no, wait, now it’s a queen!

I think other companies make them, too–they’re also referred to as “lifetime” or “legacy” beds. I know the price sounds steep, but when you consider that you’d theoretically never have to buy another bed for the kid, not only is this one of the most AWESOME INVENTIONS EVER, it’s also a bargain!

Maybe froze isn’t the right word. It just stopped. I was completely dumb-founded. And it doesn’t make sense really, because we had been trying to get pregnant for about 8 months. So 8 months of looking at the calendar and anxiously awaiting the end of each month, and I still wasn’t prepared for those 2 pink lines. It’s happened only twice before, when Jeff asked me to marry him, and when Angela told me she was pregnant. Both were totally unexpected and rendered me completely stupified. I acted like an idiot. My brain just wouldn’t register what was happening.

That’s how it was this time. I saw the lines and just froze. I don’t even know what I was thinking. All I could do was pace, but it wasn’t a nervous pace. It was like those times you walk into the kitchen and suddenly stop because you’ve forgotten why you were there. I just didn’t know how to get to the bed to tell Jeff. Finally I managed to climb in next to my sick and sleeping husband.

“You need to go in the bathroom, ” or “There’s something you need to see in the bathroom.” I said something like that. I was aware that those words made it sound like there was some kind of bug or something that he needed to get rid of. But after he woke up, he looked at me and he just knew.

I’m just thawing now. I’m 11 weeks and 2 days pregnant.

For anyone reading this who does not know my wife, she is one of the sweetest, most even-tempered human beings on the planet. I think probably the main reason we tend to never argue is that she’s just great at putting up with me, and BS in general.

It is for this reason that the havoc being wreaked on her emotional stability by these hormones has been so noticeable. I mean, she’s got moods all of a sudden. She’ll be cranky for no good reason, laugh hysterically, cry at the drop of a hat.

The other night, we were looking at houses online, and she was suspicious of the prices. “What kind of place can these houses be in?” she hollered.

“Hey,” I said, “don’t yell in my ear.”

Her eyes filled up. “Why are you getting so upset?”

So on and so forth. The best yet was yesterday morning, when she cried about feeling bloated, then laughed at herself for crying. I’m so glad I’m a guy.

Fellas, if you get your woman pregnant, be careful of those hormones. It’s a whole new world out there.