Bringing up Baby, but Baby isn’t a leopard.

On Sunday I didn’t love HW. Sure, in an abstract way I was committed to taking care of and providing for it, but at the time there was no practical way for me to emotional connect with lil’ foetus. Then we had our twenty week ultrasound Monday afternoon. You can read the whole story over here if you’d like. Short version:

Monday the ultrasound technician casually dropped the words “amniotic band” during our appointment. We didn’t think anything of it until googling it later that evening. Tuesday we got back in to talk to our doctor and he suggested that we see a specialist. Thankfully we got into see the specialist, Dr. Head, on Wednesday. Dr. Head, whom, incidentally, always makes me think of this, quickly discovered that there were no amniotic bands and that everything is just fine in utero.

This week was excruciating while also devastatingly happy. Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday we just felt so helpless — there was literally nothing we could do other than wait to hear what the doctors had to say. Everything — tv, people, work, inets — reminded me that some little thing inside my wife wasn’t safe and I couldn’t do anything about it. It was utterly depressing.

Wednesday morning I was distracted and nervous. Like, really really nervous. I couldn’t think and my chest felt constricted — for like four hours. I thought our best case scenario was going to be: “Well, we’ll keep an eye on it. Everything is fine for now.” But through some miracle we walked out of the specialist’s office with a healthy baby once again. And things were fantastic.

So I bought a huge beer and drank it to celebrate.

But somehow, through all of this utter shit, I’ve come out loving HW. Like really loving it. Nothing like a crucible of a terrible medical anomaly to sort your out feelings.

THAT'S RIGHT. FEELINGS. I'VE UPGRADED MY OPERATING SYSTEM TO INCLUDE THOSE. SOMETIMES THEY ARE INCONVENIENT. EOL. EOF.

So Val is fifty percent pregnant (week 19). I, occasionally, wistfully remember how recently I awoke to barfing each morning. Those were the days folks. When men were men, and women were barfing constantly. But honestly people, the second trimester is serious logz: the wife gets fatter and a wee bit saner, but things remain relatively plateaued.

Now we wait for The Happening or The Quickening or The Somethinging.

Quantitative proof

It has always been a possibility that this whole “pregnancy” has been an elaborate ruse put on by Val to cover up her burgeoning beer belly. There was no real proof that something — something wondeful/disgusting (wonderfully disgusting?) — was growing inside of her loins. That is … UNTIL NOW.

On Sunday I felt HW punch Valerie in the guts. Most likely Val had said something which HW and I both disagreed with and HW decided to voice his/her displeasure with violence. I blame video games. But it was really cool and bizarre.

Also, HW can now hear — opposed to his/her’s namesake (IRONY!). So we’ve loaded some tunes onto the ol’ iPod shuffle and blast them nightly into the ol’ uterus. The list of approved music follows:

• The Beatles
• Otis Redding
• Johnny Cash

Screw Mozart.

Materialism

We are also starting to get our first influx of child related things. The great part is we haven’t spent a dime. Things have miraculously apparated into our house with alarming frequency. For small things — and luckily most baby things are necessarily small — this is fine. We tuck them in a draw and forget about them.

I am wary, however, of all the stuff you “need” to have a kid. Chairs, bouncy things, rocky things, soft things, terrible plastic things that make noises. People: I am trying to de-clutter here. I am also, hopefully, trying to raise a kid who doesn’t use stuff as a measure of self-worth.

We’ll see how far I’ll get in this my current quest.

So this is week, today officially, is week fifteen. There have been few changes since last we spoke. Oh wait: I think we had sex a couple of times! The wife’s delicate condition has, over the last three weeks, become significantly less delicate and no longer does the travesty of chicken make her cry or is her libido a resident of Fraggle Rock.

The first trimester is no joke people.

Maybe pregnancy gets a bad rap, though. The other day I was telling a dude about how Val was complaining about something legitimately annoying — like getting stung by a bee, or being trapped in an elevator with a flatulent Pauly Shore — and the guy was like “But that is because she is pregnant right?” What!? Perhaps not all of pregnancy is like that painting in Good Will Hunting: alone, awash in a stormy ocean of “feelings” and “emotions.” I don’t want to get ahead of myself, knowing nothing about the mythical Third Trimester, but the second trimester is like this plush oasis on the edge of the petulant and barren first trimester.

Now I would like to talk about two different things.

Genetical dilemma

At some point during HW’s continued development INSIDE THE CONFINES OF MY WIFE we can elect for some voodoo witchdoctor procedures that will deduce his/her genetic make up. Actually, I’m not sure what they deduce, but you end up with a report of whether your nascent offspring has Abraham Lincoln Disease or some equally terrible affliction. Do you get the tests done and live with knowing your child has some debilitating condition? Can you live with not knowing? Also the tests have a high rate of false positives. Also this graph terrifies me.

Honestly, I don’t care either way and have left the decision up to Val. At this point she is against having the tests done.

Paternal prejudice

My mom gave me a copy of Parenting Magazine to which I responded with “I’m too young for that!” to which, in turn, she responded with a critical glare. At the top of the magazine is their, I guess, motto: “What Matters to Moms.” How irritating is that? I realize that “What Matters to Dads” isn’t alliterative but seriously people when did fathers stop being parents? PROPAGATING OPPRESSIVE STEREOTYPES. I’ll probably end up ranting about this quite a bit. Get excited.

Twelve weeks (really eight, but, you know, they spot you four) in to the Great Pregnancy of Two Thousand and Eight and we’ve crossed into the Second Trimester. They say pregnancy takes 38 weeks or three trimesters. 38 is a number not divisible by three which consequently pisses me off. Why would your base unit of pregnancy progress not line up nicely with a Gregorian calendar? Annoying.

So here we are heading into week thirteen — as of Wednesday — and the supposed glory of the second trimester. It is obviously now time turn back the dried yellowed pages of time and analyze the passing of this the first trimester. Watch out, it may get personal.

Libido

First things first gents. The onset of The Pregnancy brings with it many symptoms. Some of which may inclued an increase in appetite, a loss of appetite, constipation, diarrhea , yin, and sometimes yang. One symptom that They never tell you about is a severe loss of libido aka SEXUAL DRIVE.

Just to clarify: my libido is unaffected in anyway (fyi, ladies!).

I hear that across the river Jordan, in the promised land of The Second Trimester, sex flows like wine. Unlike now. Where it does not flow. In any sort of way or manner.

Food

I’ve been organizing a home-based, grass roots, armed resistance against eating unhealthy and expensively. I envisioned pregnancy as a vast German offensive, swiftly dividing, encircling, and, ultimately, destroying all of my culinary attempts to safely feed our new bulge (aka HW). Luckily, it hasn’t been nearly that bad. I think Val has only had two intense cravings that have each lasted about a week: salsa and tangy foods. Salsa was easy and the tangy food thing was placated with Granny Smith apples.

There have been, however, foods that incite such hatred that the mere mention is enough to have your eyes put out and tongue cut off. Currently those foods include: cumin and … chicken? WTF! Chicken! Like, everything is made from chicken. Luckily chicken seems to be working its way back into Val’s good graces. But seriously, people, what is cumin like? Is it still delicious? I bet it is.

Mood swings

Pregnant women are crazy! Ho ho ho! Life is just like Everyone Loves Raymond! Thus far I think the number of instances where I was left utterly befuddled after an emotional encounter with the wife total two. The first time I was making a chicken salad and it made her cry. Honestly. The other time MattWhite made her cry by telling her that she “was being overly sensitive for two now.” That turned out to be a fatal maneuver — the funeral will be held later this week.

Other than that things have been copacetic.

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I’m not sure the entire enormity of the situation has fully sunk in — in fact I’m sure it won’t until T-0. But until that fateful day we remain optimistic and in good spirits.

Here you can see HW doing his/her (that is going to be annoying for the next couple of months) best to portray an amorphous, grainy blob. In the upper left you can see HOLY SHIT IT IS THAT GUY FROM SCREAM (THE MOVIE)!! I wonder how he got in there?

* where son is defined as son or daughter

Update!

You may have heard: I am going to be a father. When I speak it aloud, giving form and girth to the idea, it sounds ludicrous and even preposterous. Largely, the feelings that bubble up through the oil coursing through my gleaming, unfeeling, robotic heart are positive. But it is, as you can imagine, complicated. So, when a passerby exclaims, “Congratulations!” I say “Thanks, man.”

Then we sit in awkward silence.

I suppose people expect me to gush effusively about how my pending addition to the species has given me a new perspective on life, and I’ve finally grokked What It Is All About. Two things about that though. First, my internal ruminations on parenthood might just be personal and not something I feel like expounding upon. Second, I’m not really known for my showy displays of emotion; recall the aforementioned robotic heart.

It is important for me, however, to assuage any concerns friends and family may have about my lack of so called “feelings” for my unborn child. Let me assure you that, daily, I am having plenty of feelings and that “love” is one of them that frequents the neighborhood.

Consider yourselves assuaged.

And as further proof that I am experiencing an adequate amount of excitement here is list of excitement evoking things:

• ultrasound tomorrow!
• painting a mural depicting a robot uprising
• not owning anything pink or powder blue
• making baby food
• instilling virtues
• having a DD for the next thirty weeks
• playing Johnny Cash and The Beatles in utero

I am severely committed to following plank in my run for Fatherhood in 2008. Please, by all means, keep me accountable to my campaign promises.

Plank one: Don’t be boring and obtuse

I have learned — from other expectant fathers — that from the second your wife’s pee seeps into that historic stick, coaxing those pink lines to boldly come forth, you must tell boring stories that no one gives a shit about. The following list, which is by no means comprehensive, details topics that prenatal fathers must tell elaborate and boring stories about — perhaps to innocent strangers:

• wife’s vagina
• bisphenol A
• breast pumps
• mucus plug
• constipation
• pregnancy books

To be completely honest, people, this plank might not apply to you. You come here with the intent, the unabashed raw desire, to read the latest tale of woe/joy as it springs from my fingers. But! dear man on the street, fellow coworker, friend I am drinking a beer with, I realize you have no — zilch — desire to know my the progress or schedule of my wife’s bowel movements, etc.

Therefore I promise to not inundate you with mundane stories that will, quite frankly, bore the piss out of you.

Today, Val announced to the public that she is, in fact, pregnant with the next iteration of the Catrow family line. Since you, dear internets, were the last to know you have some catching up to do: we are currently ten weeks into a forty week (lifelong?) process, my how time — like a mighty river — has flown.

The following is clearly TMI

For some reason, who knows why, I had it in my head that I wouldn’t dream of siring a babe until I was nigh unto 30 years of age. Valerie had quite different plans. Thus we fought endlessly as many fists were shook and tears shed. Note: always talk about when you want to have kids with your prospective wife, not just if. Finally through much bartering, hemming, and also hawing, we decided to “try” — which means “have unprotected sex” — the last two weeks of February, skip March, and resume in April. This was palatable and I accepted the offer as I laughed haughtily, twirled my moustache, and envisioned weeks of endless sex.

Valerie was impregnated ON THE FIRST TRY. ALWAYS WEAR A CONDOM PEOPLE THEY AREN’T KIDDING. I imagine that when I turn 46 and the opportunity for endless sex presents it self again the erectile dysfunction drugs will be miraculous.

Disclosure: My wife told me that if I made it seem like she forced me into having kids she would hit me with the baseball bat again.

Tests, which are, honestly, pretty expensive

On March 5th Valerie and I got into a huge fight — something that is pretty rare for us. I think I failed to a) do the dishes like I said I would or b) clean the bathroom like I said I would. Either way, it escalated rather quickly. Which made me feel rather bad when … Val took a pregnancy test at work the next day! And it was positive! And then she took five more!

She is thorough, that one.

So we told a few people close to us — I told like, literally, two people while Val told the entire state of Nebraska — and made a doctor’s appointment. Then we waited, and actually are still waiting, to pass out of The Danger Zone. Apparently, until week twelve (interesting sidenote: they spot you four weeks up front. So when you find out you’re pregnant you’re actually four weeks pregnant) you live in this constant state of fear of a miscarriage.

While dreading the impudent exeunt of our newly fashioned life form I stepped up my culinary efforts. As my wife knits bone from flesh my main task is to provide her with the nutrients necessary to do so. She does not need to “eat for two” as they (the fatties) say. She just needs to eat balanced and healthy meals. This is where I come in.

Alan Alda

Today we had our first doctor’s appointment with a kindly gentleman who, while looks nothing like, has the mannerisms of Alan Alda. Not only that, but he is the OBGYN for fully three generations of my wife’s family. If we have a girl and Valerie’s grandmother is still alive he will have seen FOUR generations of Harris family vaginas. Seriously.

Val was supposed to get an (awkwardly internal) ultrasound, but the technician had a “family emergency.” After waiting six dreadfully slow weeks we’ll have to wait another to see a blurry, grainy picture of our foetus. But! We got to hear the heartbeat using a weird portable sonar device that looked like a ray gun.

It sounded just like it does in the movies, rather wooshy.

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That’s where we are. The awkwardly internal ultrasound has been rescheduled for next Monday. Barring terrible catastrophes I might have pictures then.

STOKED!