Follow Mea Culpa...

Ladies and Gentlemen...I need followers. Not the kind of followers that David Koresh was looking for, just some people who will sign up to read my blog from time to time, so I know someone is "listening". Don't wanna follow? How about a comment at the bottom? Just a little something to let me know you're there. I'll even give you a phrase. In honor of the season 6 premiere of LOST, if you read a post and find it interesting...just drop a "Push The Button!" in the comments section.

Now, on to our show...

Wow, my worst nightmare came true. No...the baby is fine! Actually, it's that my procrastination set in. I intentionally waited until I had a couple posts on here before I told anyone about this, to make sure I could keep up with it on a regular basis. Well, several weeks later and I'm just now dropping my 4th post of knowledge on ya. Sorry, four followers!

We are at 14 weeks now and very relieved to be past the first trimester. The good news is, Cristy had very little morning sickness. The bad news is, she's had a hard time sleeping and her back has been hurting. What does that mean? Welcome to the bedroom Boppy! I'm sure you guys are familiar with this amazing, curved, stuffed, cuddle invention. It's designed so that the pregnant female (that sounds like something from National Geographic) can put it between her legs and it relieves the stress on her back, allowing her to rest more comfortably. What it does for me, is take up more of the bed and allow my wife to steal more covers....Yeah!

It's helped a little, as well as a couple stints sleeping on the couch (her....not me!). I can only imagine this will get worse as we move on and the belly gets bigger and bigger. Speaking of belly, I'm amazed at how fast she got a baby bump. It seems like she was showing at about 7 weeks. It's got me a little worried that we might be looking at Cristy and Brian Plus 9. If that happens, don't look for any more blog updates...any more facebook posts....any more life for me...

Peanut with a heartbeat...

First of all, I want to thank everyone for the positive responses about this blog. Since I didn't get any "this sucks" comments, I decided to continue on. So, now you get to take the blame for the rest of these blogs. On to our show...

Well, we had our first real doctor's appointment on January 11th. Going in I was really nervous, because we were coming up on week 11 and it was going to be our first attempt at hearing a heartbeat. You see, ever since we found out we were pregnant, I feel like I've been walking on egg shells. We wanted to wait until the first trimester was over before we started telling people, but we were just so excited, we told everybody the next day. So now I feel like Joe Namath guaranteeing a win at the Super Bowl, this thing better happen!

The visit itself went kind of strange. They got Cristy into the room and ready for the exam, then I came in to wait with her for the doctor. From what I can gather, nine months ago, someone had a great party with lots of booze and bad decisions happening, because this place was busy! We waited about an hour for the doctor, who she said she had to hurry because she had to "catch a baby!" The doctor quickly put the device on Cristy's belly and found the heartbeat. Once I confirmed with the doc it was the heartbeat, I felt a huge sense of relief. It was the greatest thing in the world to hear it for the first time and to see the joy on Cristy's face. For both of us, I think it made everything real and confirmed to us that "we're parents"!

Just as I started feeling all these emotions, the doc moved on. She finished the exam, answered a few questions and took off. Why is it I'm already pissed that other babies are getting special treatment. Just because they are fully developed and ready to enter the world, doesn't mean my peanut gets shafted doctor time! In all seriousness, our doctor is great and spent as much time with us as we needed. She could have sat there all day with the heartbeat-listening device and it still wouldn't have been enough.

Obviously, we're still not out of the woods yet, but hearing the heartbeat was another hurdle to get over and certainly eased my neurosis just a little bit more. All I can say is, the doctor better pack a lunch when it comes time to bust out the ultrasound...

Are you going to the gym...I'm pregnant!

OK...time for the first flashback and the reason why this pregnancy is so amazing for us. Let me just say, I know there are far more mind-bending pregnancy stories, but this one happen to us and I'm the one writing this freakin' blog.

Cristy and I love kids. We both have nieces and nephews that we spoil and spend lots of time with. My nieces and nephew LOVE her and her nieces and nephews acknowledge we're married. So, having kids was always a part of the plan, it was just a matter of when. Like a lot of couples we decided to wait a year or two before we started trying and once we did, we thought "Any day now!" Well...weeks turned into months and months turned into years and still no baby.

After a couple years, being the astute couple we are, we thought something must be wrong here! A couple tests here and there (along with a few more months of dragging our feet) we're finally told having a child naturally would not be possible. Good news... you can have a kid together...bad news, you have to invest in a turkey baster. At that point, at least in my mind, it became "When do you want to place an order for a child?"

We put it out of minds for awhile and Cristy began work putting on her elementary school production of The Lion King. It was a huge production that took up 3 months or her life with late nights, long weekends and lots of paper mache. A very stressful time for her!

A few weeks after her production wrapped, I get a phone call at work.

Cristy: Are you going to the gym today?

Me: I was planning on it.

Cristy: You may want to come home.

Me: OK.....is there something you need me to do?

Cristy:......................I'm pregnant!

My Inner Monologue: Sounds like my work is done...I'm heading to the gym!

Me (for real): What?

I was so excited, but with everything we'd went through, I wasn't ready to believe it. The test had to be old, a false positive or the neighbor peed on the stick. Even when the doctor did the pee test the next day, I almost asked them to do a blood test just to be sure. In truth, it wasn't until we heard the heartbeat 5 weeks later that I really felt like it was real. And it's real...my wife's hormone changes so far have been proof of that, but I'll save that for later...

Welcome....

So...I had this idea a few months ago to start a blog. I had seen a couple other friends do it and thought it was a good idea for a couple reasons: I could practice writing, while relieving myself of all the crazy thoughts that flow through my mind. It was just going to be me rambling on about random things happening in my life or observations I've made. I tend to like comedy more than tragedy, so I was hoping I could take it in a humorous direction.

But...like most things, I kept putting it off. Then something amazing happened to me. On December 7th, 2009, I found out my wife was 6 weeks pregnant. The pregnancy itself wasn't amazing (I'm told it happens often these day). It was the fact that WE were pregnant. So...I decided to go ahead and create the blog, so I could document our journey (mostly MY journey, since I will be the one writing this stuff) through this pregnancy. Hopefully, it will be entertaining to you, the non-existent reader (as of this posting, anyway).

As of this posting, Cristy is 11 weeks, so I have a lot of catching up to do. I'll have to handle this shit like LOST and tell things in Flash Back. Try to keep up!