Baby on Board!

Shortly after getting our puppy "tha monster", my wife came home from work one early morning after putting in a hard 12 plus hours at the local ER tending to the Hammer's down & out and handed me one of them self-pregnancy tests indicating that she was 100% +ly pregnant. Then it donned on me "I'm going to be a dad!" and also that "I'm holding something she peed on!"

I was caught a little off guard by this news but looking back i see how i should have known. Ever since we got back from vacation all she did was sleep and work...and then there was the incident where she cried over the Monster being too much and something else of equal silliness. The former ("I'm going to be a dad!") was a pretty big news and a million thoughts begin to rush through your head, okay maybe just 10 or so but a million sounds way better: "Will I be a good father?" "Is it wrong to hope it's a boy?" "Do I need more life insurance?" "Insurance is a racket and should be outlawed!" "When's my wife going to get the mom-cut?" "What colour should I paint the baby's room?" "How will this affect my time for biking?" "Should I feel guilty for thinking the above?" "I better go on a vacation soon."

Having growedup in a family of just boys, girls have always been the oldly perplexing unknown, and unknown is what we fear the most. Gotta say i think girls scare me cause they have emotions...my wife tells me that I have emotions too but I just don't see it...okay so I guess grumpy is an emotion but still limited at best.

A few peculiarities occured along the way. Strangest one being that I got morning sickness! What the! This lasted for around 3 weeks and it was not pleasant...although it may have saved us a couple extra bucks on groceries that we can spend on diapers later. Nothing like only being able to eat 2 bits of breakfast before you feel nausious and then bike 1/2 hour to work without falling over from a bonk.

So it all seemed pretty surreal up until yesterday. So far my wife just keeps changing shape and tells me that she's only gained one pound! This doesn't bode well as I was hoping to lose one pound for every one she gained. Being 20 weeks now you can clearly tell she's pregnant, its more than a bump, and now it was time for our first ultrasound. I cruise home to pick up the 2 of them and head down to the local Hospital for our appointment, okay it wasn't that easy, luckily the hospital is close as the 2 of them were still in bed sound asleep when I got home 20 minutes before the appointment. Now we had a bootleg photo of our fetus produced by one of the high-tech Apple phone thingies but I wanted the real deal. I wanted to see that little parasite that was hosting on my wife MOVE!

There is something entirely helpless about being an expectant father. You don't really get much involvement it seems...sure there's backrubs required of you and you have to prepare the nursery and what not but it's such an external experience. You're pretty much just a not so innocent bystander who gets to sit back and just watch what unfolds.

So today was my day...or was it! After arriving, late I might add, we waited for our name to be called. I was then informed that I was not allowed in. Some BS rule that they had just started prolly because people were showing up with the whole extended family or something of the like. So, my wife is whisked away and I'm stuck in the waiting room with a handful of other suckers and countless posters warning me of the dangers of Swine Flue (or H1N1 as those politically sensitive wankers like to call it) and how I better drink the koolaid and use the handsanitizer available every 5 feet or so or await nothing short of certain death. And i wait and i wait and i wait! Now i'm getting a wee bit restless and am starting to think all i am going to get is to look at some picture at the end of it all! Some other guy gets to go with his significant other, well maybe she was there for a problem so i decide not to get irate. I want to see my baby move! I see the tech! but wait she's not coming this way...and she's moving about as speedily as a giant squid would in the Sahara...she goes into what i think is the break room for some time and finally emerges and requests me to follow her. So there's my wife in all her radiant pregnant glory with some jelly on her belly. The tech, who probably got her degree from DeVry or Athabaska Uni, starts it up and whirls the screen for our view and voila! There's our little baby. Complete with hands, arms, fingers, feet and toes, a heart in thier chest and a brain in thier head! So our little girl or boy looks perfect to me, now i just have to wait another 4.5 months to meet the little tyke! Now i guess its time to forget how to drive and mount one of these badboys in the rear window!

In my honest opinion, those baby on board signs are useless in the back window and should actually be mounted in the top left corner of the windshield facing inward to remind the driver to pay attention to the road and stop talking goo-goo gaa-gaa while putting the rest of the world's population in peril. These signs are akin to the Jesus fish, and drivers with hats....but i digress.

"Will I be a good father?" Well I don't know, but it sure won't be for a lack of trying!