Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

parenting

Excitement Is Ruining My Grammar

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It’s official.

I mean, we knew already from the many strips of paper and the lack of a period, but now we have a blood test that confirms it: you are having a baby.

I’ve been texting E about it all day. “Antici…”

She didn’t think it was as funny as I did.

The first thing I did was text Mel to tell her. To tell someone. I’m not sure how someone with a blog can be so very private about these things, but Mel is the only person in my world who even knew that E and I were talking about trying to get pregnant this year.

Why tell her and no one else? It’s something to do with her story, more than mine. I knew her before her kids, before there was any hint of them being on the way. I knew her through both pregnancies, and now on the other side, and she is the same brilliant, hilarious,  type-A person she was before – only now she’s that as well as the mom of two toddlers.

This has been a big part of my progress to becoming a willing father to be. In my life I’ve known so many people who have gone from vibrant adults to dull, disconnected parents who are no longer people in their own right. Before we got pregnant, I had to know – know that I could still be me, who loves words and music and making intricate plans. I didn’t want all of me to be undone just to have another person to look after.

I won’t say Mel is my only role model in that regard, but because we’re alike, and she is even more like E, she’s the one that’s brought me the most peace of mind. So, she’s who I told first, even though I can’t wait to tell Gina and Ross and all the other adopted aunts and uncles this eventual but no longer hypothetical baby will have.

Mel texted back two incoherent strings of text, and then: “Excitement is ruining my grammar!”

Yep, that’s Mel.

Note: This post was embargoed until we reached 20 weeks; it was made public on 3/20/2013.

Definitely Probably Pregnant

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As I fall asleep, I think about cells rapidly dividing.

Nothing is ever a sure thing, but I am pretty sure we are pregnant.

ZygoteWe have been trying for a few months now, where “trying” means (close your eyes, future offspring) having sex with a little more consternation and chart-making than usual. I mean, depending on your usual sex, I guess.

This time around I don’t think it would be projection to say we both felt a little different as the week wore on. When we woke up yesterday, after much devil’s advocacy from both sides we wanted to take the test. I inquired if I needed to hold any sort of papers while E peed on them and was rapidly dismissed.

“Wait,” I said. “What should I do?”

“Not follow me into the bathroom?”

“No, I mean, what should I be doing in case you come downstairs and tell me we’re pregnant? I don’t want to be surfing the internet. This is a big moment.”

“It is,” she acceded, maybe fidgeting impatiently.

“How long does it take?”

“Five minutes.”

“I’m going to play a song. Something I wrote. A song about you.”

“Okay,” she said. And, maybe, “Can I go take the test now?”

“Yes. Okay.”

I played a song called “What Do You Want From Me?” which in retrospect was a peculiar choice. It’s a song about being an imperfect partner and lover, and being afraid you aren’t enough how you are. I don’t think I chose it with any intent, but it was a decent enough selection for five minutes of being Schrodinger’s Expectant Father.

She returned during the last verse and proffered me a tiny strip of paper full of arcane writing and a series of red lines.

“I think it’s positive.”

“What am I reading here?” I said, squinting down at the paper.

“Two red lines.”

two-red-lines“I see them. The one’s a little faint.”

“Doesn’t matter,” she replied. “I’m pregnant.”

Of course, this is me we’re talking about. E is growing a baby while I harbor an OCD Godzilla. She would need to test again. I would watch. Luckily, this was not the pee right on it sort of test. There was a sort of shot glass full of urine for testing purposes. Is that too much information? I’m just trying to be transparent about the utter ridiculousness of the situation. This is how new life is discovered.

We tested and I watched. Like a hawk. From two or three inches away from our second little urine-soaked paper strip while E kept time on a digital watch.

“I definitely see a second line.”

We were pregnant. Definitely. Probably.

“Can we just dip a fistful of the strips into the pee to be sure?”

She sighed, exasperated, maybe realizing she was in for nine months of me being the crazy one … and, that even if her hormones allowed her to briefly surpass my crazy, Godzilla and I would spring back into the lead and maintain it for the majority of our offspring’s 18 years of childhood.

“Imagine,” I encouraged E later in the day, “if we had a way to make just one or two of those cells the best possible cell right now. We’d wind up with a 12.5% better baby!”

That was most of the baby chat for the day. We’re not too precious. But, as I turned over in bed to face E all that was on my mind was cells that were once one and are now many, more even since we discovered them in the morning.

That was our baby.

Note: This post was embargoed until we reached 20 weeks; it was made public on 3/20/2013.

Birds, Bees, Abs, Pees

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Okay, maybe I was supposed to remember this from biology or from the little clear-plastic visible woman I put together when I was eight that came complete with detatchable pregnant belly. If so, I apologize for my general scientific truancy.

If a woman has very defined abs and she gets pregnant, where do the abs go? Are they behind the belly, still intact? Does the belly dissolve the abs?

You have to realize that i’ve hardly known any pregnant people in my life. All of my aunts got pregnant in the same year, in which i recall seeing them only sparingly, and i’ve had one pregnant friend who i didn’t have an entire conversation with for the length of her pregnancy. I am operating on a deficit of facts here. The Internets and The Google have yet to come through for me.

This one is slightly less embarrasing then when, at age eight, I asked how a mommy pees when she is giving birth since she’s somewhat busy down there at the time.

Yeah, I was pretty precocious, wasn’t I? No cabbage patches and storks for me, I was already trying to understand the points of vaginal multi-tasking.