Fatherhood: The Blog - Second Trimester!

           Happy birthday kid, we made it! We are now firmly ensconced in the second trimester of Margaret's pregnancy and she has yet to vomit even once. In fact, I don't think I've vomited the entire pregnancy either (impressive, I know). I haven't updated this blog lately but for a variety of very good and convincing reasons. Life has been extremely busy, with friends, family, and other social activities, as well as the same old grind of work, love, and responsibilities. In fact, we've barely even played Halo in the past couple of weeks, so you know we've been busy. I've also been around a lot of children lately, so I'm learning all about what kind of parent I will be - answer: a great one.

            Last week my entire immediate family came over (except my dear wild beast of a brother who is currently spearfishing during breaks from his Special Forces training in Florida) and we grilled out and played yard games (including watching a squirrel fall out of a tree from 40 feet up, land on all fours in my backyard, and look around wide eyed and then run off). My sister brought her three kids, of course, and so I got to hang out with them, watching them play and eat and all of that and frankly - it's quite exhausting. Thankfully we're birthing a child, not adopting a trifecta, so we get a chance to grow into the situation, not have it all just dumped upon us. Since parenthood is obviously boiling water, it's good to get into it frog style, with the heat being turned up a little bit at a time.
           Also my dear friend from my adolescence (we met nearly 13 years ago when I, to break the boring silence, turned to him and said, "I don't know if you know this or not, but I can fly." "Like Peter Pan?" he asked. "No, like Buzz Lightyear." I told him. After that we were BFFs.) who now works on stealth bombers in a secret location in the midwest is in town for a couple of weeks with his wife and 16 month old son. They stayed with us this weekend so I got to experience an even different age of child (5 year old, 4 year old, 2 year old, and 1 year old all within 24 hours (I'm guessing. I don't actually know how old my nieces are)). He was surprisingly fun - he's old enough to actually have a personality, even if he doesn't talk much. He eats regular food (like a monster. I think he ate a pound of bacon Sunday morning) and laughs and climbs on stuff and gives high fives - that's enough for me. The only real problem is that after he went to bed we stayed up talking and watching TV (and generally being guys - we saw Rondo get his elbow bent backwards in the Celtics game and squealed in horror while covering our faces...then spent the next ten minutes watching replays of it, trying to find it online, and covering our eyes and screaming every time we saw it) and I didn't go to bed until after 1 a.m. Mag had fallen asleep on the couch, so after everyone else went to bed I straightened up, did some dishes, and went and woke her up. She did the classic, "Huh? What? I wasn't asleep. My eyes were closed but I could still hear everything." Then she realized that it had been like an hour so we went to bed.

         THEN, by 7 a.m. I could hear the baby's fat legs running around the house so got up to watch Fraggle Rock (and the first 20 minutes of Waterworld) with he and Jake. We went to Zoo Atlanta with them that morning/afternoon and I was ready for bed by about 5 that evening. Of course I had to stay up until 10 p.m. so I could watch A Game of Thrones, so I got to experience a little bit of the exhaustion of parenthood. The zoo was busy, as mom's get in free on Mother's Day, and there were a ton of parents and kids there. My personal opinion is that Mother's Day should be celebrated by the mom not having to be a mom. The dad should take the kids to the zoo and the mom should go to the spa or something. A mother is a mother every day of the year - give her a break for one day in appreciation of her being a mom. The zoo was fun and Margaret fell in love with the Red Panda (I argued with myself all day over whether it was in the bear family or the raccoon family but couldn't remember. I looked it up and it used to be in the raccoon family, then was moved to the bear family, and now is in it's own family). Therefore, when she was distracted later, I sprinted across the zoo, taking steps three at a time, hurdling strollers, shoving old ladies to the ground, and finally bursting through the front glass of the cleverly titled, "PANDAMONIUM" gift shop. I purchased the last stuffed Red Panda, donated a dollar to Panda Research or some such b.s., and caught up with Mag, handing her a paper bag and declaring, "HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!" I told her I was giving her a gift to give our child - unfortunately she's slept with it in our bed every night since. My god, what have I done?

                Now, back to our own child. There are a lot of feelings that one experiences when fatherhood is impending - joy, anticipation, anxiety, excitement, and...terror. Absolute terror. While Margaret was out of town for a conference two weekends ago she started experiencing a sharp pain in her side and a few other strange symptoms. She texted me about it and I looked it up online. It didn't seem to be any big deal really - just some minor common pregnancy complications. But I found out one thing that I'm sure many other future parents have discovered - the Internet is a horrible place. You might find nine sites that say, "It's nothing, don't worry about it." but you will always find one that says, "It's a sign of a miscarriage! Your baby is dead!" Logic flies out the window and that hand of horror grips you by the spine and you feel the ice begin to spread up and out. Your body functions slow down, making breathing suddenly seem difficult, as your brain kicks into overdrive, thinking a thousand different thoughts in a thousand different directions and never even finishing a single sentence. It's like when you can't reach a family member who normally responds to your calls or texts and for no real reason your brain starts thinking, "Are they okay? Was there a car wreck? What's going on?" There are a lot more reasons to assume their phone isn't charged, rather than that they drove off of a cliff, but we aren't always reasonable. Of course I just told Mag that the Internet said everything was fine, as there is no reason to spread The Fear, but that we should probably tell the doctor about it on Monday.
                So, on Monday she calls the doctor and the doctor says that she wants her to come in that very morning for an ultrasound, or sonogram, or whatever (is that the same thing?). By this time it's been a good 40 hours and my brain has reasoned with my emotions to convince myself everything is fine, but now my emotions kick my brain in the balls and say, "AHA! You thought you had me, but look at my new weaponry!"   I rush to get off of work in time for the newly scheduled appointment. Mag beats me there and I rush, skidding around corners, running red lights, splattering hobos, using conveniently placed tow trucks as ramps, and fly into the parking lot of the OB/GYN, doing a shoulder roll out of my truck as it crashes into a series of parked cars. I stand up, brush myself off, and walk through the door. You see, I don't think my presence will change the news, whatever it may be. I don't imagine the doctor will pull me out of the room and say, "We couldn't find a heartbeat" and then I'll break the news to Mag. I just don't want them to tell her and then for her to have to call and tell me. No mother should ever get bad news about the baby in their belly, but I can't control that. No mother should ever have to tell bad news about the baby in her belly though, and that's the only thing I can control in this situation.
                      Mag is already in the back, and the office has some stupid cell phone blocking powers so there's no way of contacting her. I tell the bimbo at the front desk why I'm there and she stares blankly around for a bit and then I have to tell her again. She asks me if I'm sure I'm at the right place (because I'm sure a lot of men accidentally stumble into the OB/GYN office) and finally Mag walks out of a door with pictures of our healthy, happy, extra-large baby. We sit on a couch in the waiting room and cuddle for a bit while looking at pictures of our little minion.

Size of my baby

                  It is a strange feeling, looking at the weird mass of cells that are nestled in your wife's belly, and that are beginning to form your own child - carrying your own DNA, and vestiges of your own personality, and it's own random hopes and dreams. I didn't really experience any wonder or ultra sensational feeling though - really all I was feeling at that moment was relief. I've studied the pictures since, of course, and the kid actually does look like a human, albeit a curled up giant-headed weird one. They say his/her spine looks just marvelous, and that he/she is also bigger than expected - in fact they said if they were in the business of moving due dates they'd probably move it from 11/11/11 to 11/08/11, but that we'll just let the prediction ride. Speaking of the whole him/her/it conundrum, Mag solved it in her own corny way. One night we were lying in bed as she (always remarkably in tune with her own body) felt our baby flutter about in her womb (and I think this was the day of the ultrasound, as the tech told her that our baby was moving constantly and making photo-taking difficult) and said something about, "Chill out little Flipper!" Well, Flipper is just gender neutral enough to work, and Flipper O'Dell sounds a bit like Digger O'Dell (some obviously kooky fellow from a half-century ago who used to bury himself in cars or phone booths or whatever and let people watch him live his enclosed life through a periscope. Hopefully I am in no way related to him.). I was annoying Mag by singing lullabies my grandfather used to sing to me (that make no sense - "when you awake I'll bake you a cake and a whole lot of pretty little horses." ???) so I switched from, "Go to sleep little Margaret," to, "Go to sleep little Flipper." It's nice to have a name - no matter how silly it may be. It makes my child feel like an actual being, as opposed to an, "it."
   
         Flip well, dear Flipper, and don't ever scare me like that again.

Picture of Margaret's belly

Next week on Fatherhood: The Blog - bathing suit shopping with a pregnant woman! There's no way it can be anything but a smooth and emotionless experience!